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This is mine.

44 Inches/114cm Type 94: https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/j694745480#group=nogroup&photo=0

Looking through my swords and this hanger is unique among all of them, note the wear from the suspension ring.

If the bride allowed it, my whole house would look like Tim's. I make do with shop fittings display cases, and PERSPEX stands I designed and had LASER cut and fabricated.

Here is my Dome head hanger George.

Jean Pierre , come on ! . I don't know you, but At 15 years old I wasn't able to do so (1896)

大清唐熙年製　Dai Qing Kangxi Nen Sei Pottery mark from the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty in China.

G'day Guys, I have never noticed before, but I have one that is in between the normal ball and the dome head. It is on a mumei, shinto blade in later war mounts. Cheers, Bryce

Answering George's question on the dome headed hanger, they show up occasionally. This is on a KANESANE.

I have to say that you guys sure have some classy gunto. In 50 years I have not had a Type 34 in hand and some of you have lots of them...maybe Neil's collection explains why...almost none of them in Australia? Well speaking of 50 years...here is something that is trivial / of no importance, but is mildly interesting to us gunto nerds (hope this is OK here) ...here is the only gunto sword mount I have seen with this shape hanger top ('dome' head instead of 'ball' head). No big deal, but are there any more out there? It is on the saya of a gendaito blade by SHIGEKUNI...unknown smith, 2 character signature, no date. Good blade with silver habaki, and mon (now missing).Maybe this hanger is from a particular private mounting shop and if a couple more turn up on signed blades I will get an idea of where my SHIGEKUNI was made/mounted? Regards edit to add another trivial question...the sword was owned by 2/lt. KUME of the 32 Div. 2nd Army in Halmahera DEI. There is only 2 ways to write the name KUME...I can't find mon for these two KUME in my books...does anyone know?...might be 2 of them? ,

Hello, this isnt related to swords but I noticed "history" in the board description so I hope its ok to ask here. I'm looking for english books on samurai history and am having a hard time finding anything substantial. I've read Chaplin's three unifiers book and a few other general Japanese history books but I want in depth stuff about samurai. From the earliest recordings up to the edo period is what I'm interested in but my searches mostly pull up edo samurai stuff. Open to an edo book if it's a really good one but I want to know more about the earlier samurai. Thanks in advance, Robert P.

WTS this beautiful Mumei Wakizashi in overall excellent condition. All ensuite . Signed Tsuba: 陽斎 埋忠就昌 - Ichiyōsai Umetada Narimasa [kaō] The blade is flawless with a good polish. Nagasa 38cm Nakago 13cm Moto haba 3,2cm Moto kasane 7,2mm Kashira , fuchi , Kozuka , Kogai solid silver. Gold Menuki. Total length of Koshirae 67cm Price €4850

G'day Guys, I have had this sword for a while, but have never had any luck tracking down this obscure swordsmith. The blade is a mumei, shinshinto katana attributed to Kanenaga according to the old NBTHK paper it came with. Here are the stats of the blade: Nagasa 73.6mm Sori 14mm Motohaba 32mm Sakihaba 22mm Kasane 7mm Kissaki 38mm The nakago has no visible yasurimei. The hamon is very bright and pops out even under low light conditions. When you take the blade out into sunlight, the itame/mokume hada really "sings". Can anyone help me with any info about this smith? Cheers, Bryce

https://www.aoijapan.com/koshirae-hijikata-toshizos-shinsen-gumi-koshirae/ this fine Koshirae will never achieve Juyo but due to History its price is far above a classical tanto koshirae Juyo.

I've seen many old swords that were carried during the WWI and went to museum collections immediately afterwords... Quite a few have condition issues diminishing the value to collectors, sometimes to the point that were such offered for sale without their provenance they would have been rejected loud and clear by every member of the discerning public. Swapped and replaced parts, mismatched serial numbers, brutal and erroneous repair, ersatz modifications to make them look like a newly adopted pattern, or simply choices made by the original owner because that's what he liked. Things seen by collectors as either shady manipulations by unscrupulous dealers or something "that had no valid reason to exist in the first place". Yet this is the actual military life. With Japanese antiques I personally tend to be a bit concerned about the strength of provenance, since its a country where professionals prefer to resolve the disputes by appealing to sensei's judgement rather than to the original period documents, and what is accepted today as such and such might face scrutiny a generation later and suddenly you have nothing to show for it except that based on someone's words it was at one time accepted in this catalogue... But for this object it does not seem to be a strong objection. Would love to own this object at a lesser price, but personally don't see the sum demanded as unreasonable. And I personally really appreciate Tsuruta san offering such items in the open. It is not common. Kirill R.

The Koshirae without the sword is it worth. Incredible nice piece. When did i get some x-mas extra cash! 😭

That is a very beautiful sword. At first glance, I thought there were no activities and muji Hada, but the close ups show a gorgeous sword. Beautiful! EDIT: found this but don’t know if it’s one of those guys... oh, and you papers are NTHK I think.

Where are the love letters?

Christian, you will see it when you look at them from the backside. In my personal view, cast is still a lot better than press-molded.

I should be remembered that cast iron can be rendered a little less brittle by an annealing process, to produce malleable cast iron. This was a procedure being carried out in China at least 1000 years ago. But that aside I still maintain that iron cast tsuba are a modern phenomenon.

Come on, Chris, even real Picasso's are ugly, you probably can’t do worse!

It's not. The auction link just doesn't work This yes https://sword-auction.com/en/product/3156/as20445-刀荘司筑前大掾大慶藤直胤花押/

Here's another example i can find of Hirotsuna https://www.e-sword.jp/wakisashi/1610-2024.htm Darcy's Tsubo Nagatsuna is a great Shinto example

Jeff, you have a lot of people throwing out bits & pieces, much of which requires explanation. My recommendation is to lightly oil the blade (everything except the nakago (tang). Then, do nothing until you contact Grey Doffin, who can walk you through the cleaning process. Remember that all of us are just caretakers of our Nihonto.

The one I strongly support as the starting point is "Routledge handbook on premodern Japanese history". Its a historiography based review which goes through almost all substantial English publications till the early 2000s and gives a very decent summary of each. In Japanese there are substantially more niche publications, like those dealing with specifically market for raw materials or military training manuals which have no English counterparts. Unfortunately, more often than not non-Japanese Ph.D. thesis on such subjects are amateurish, a product of ninja to be getting into the grad program at Central University of Northern Burgundy and then blessing us with a combo of wikipedia and "well, it makes sense if this was done that way". But for both basics and general studies, English is an excellent choice Kirill R.

Thank you Steve M, Yasaka Azuma, and Stephen for your comments. I appreciate the opinions. Hopefully I will be able to narrow it down sometime into the future by showing it in person to some knowledgeable folks at one of the Sword Shows when they start having them again. Thanks all Edward G

Dark area in between whitish area is likely just from thumb pressure and abrasive qualities of uchiko. Regards, Lance

That is just residue where the Habaki was.

Thanks Barry, 73.6 cm Cheers, Bryce

Bryce, some other suspension mounts. With variations. Gunto nerds really love this stuff.

Well, I must say, I've been curious as to when this Type 94 Shin-gunto show down was going to eventually occur. You guys should all feel ashamed by this overt and flagrant braggartry of beautiful swords in 94 korshirae, making many of the rest of us with a mere 15 or 20 non Type 94 swords feel badly...☹️ Though, very much kidding Gentlemen, all seriously beautiful swords. I'm beginning to think Mr. Neal (IJASWORDS) is absolute king of Australian Gunto . What, 25-30 in that one display case... All very nice indeed ! Just envious, Dave M.

Dear Matt. From what we can see so far this appears to be a handachi mounted sword that has been kitted out to serve during WWII. In other words it is a Japanese sword, originally mounted as a civilian sword but later it has had a combat cover and a hanger added to make it serviceable in the war. Do you know how to remove the hilt? If not then pleaser ask and we can tell you. We need to see the blade without its mounts to be able to tell you much more. All the best.

Christian, that is a very humble TSUKA in not so good condition (IAIT-TO?). You bought it for the MENUKI, but what do you know about them? I would expect them to be of the same very simple quality as the FUCHI-GASHIRA set, and this can mean that they are only made of sheet metal, formed in a press-mold. The KIRI MON design is not necessarily a guarantee of better quality! Anyhow, let's hope the best, and when you have dismounted the MENUKI, please show them here to prove that I was wrong!

Prior to 1896, the Tōkyō Artillery Arsenal used 東京砲兵工廠 because the stacked cannon ball logo did not come unto use until December 1896.

Too bad the boshi got "messed up"......🤪 nice sword

無銘　江戸前期　加州兼若 Mumei early Edo (Kashū Kanewaka) The rest is too fuzzy to see, Mike.

My Humble submission

I use this. Make sure not to let the bottle open and close it immediatly because these alcohols catches water from the air.

Ken, you can find him on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/mel.pen.3

John Maybe that's not wear but mod?

A lot of bids on this fake in the last minutes. Sold for 881 EUR / 1040 Dollar 😂 Unbelivable!

I had to.