Ganko

You certainly may. I might add that it is now one of my favorite swords. It gives me much pleasure to remove it from it's saya and enjoy it's properties that are so well balanced.

More pics

Interesting that this Masatoshi came up. I have a 70 cm katana signed Bizen Okayama ju kyubei no jo Masatoshi and it is dated Man-ji gannen. I picked up last year and it was just polished in Jan.. It is a really nice piece of work. I have attached some pics, please excuse my poor photo work.

Signed Umetada Shigeyoshi, and dated Kei-cho 12

The 4th character is not Seki.It is Ko. The characters read Mote yasugi ko. meaning made with Yasugi steel. Enjoy your Kanezane.

Inshu ju Fujiwara Kanesaki

Looks like Nakajima Masayasu

It is signed Munenaga and dated Showa- something,can't make it out

It is signed Bushu ju fujiwara Kanenaga and dated manji Ni nen Hachi gatsu

Bruce, unfortunately I just recorded makers names and dates from any and all sources I could find that had star stamps. I am attaching some images and description of the mounts of some of mine that I used in my article for the NCJSC newsletter. Image 1 Typical mountings1Type 98 typical mounts.docx

Sorry about the late replay, I haven't been active on the board for a while. To answer Thomas's question as to the makers of the earliest star stamped pieces I saw which were dated Feb 42 and Mar 42. They were a 98 by Hizen Masatsugu and a type 3 by Kanetsugu respectively. I saw a type 3 by Kanenobu dated Spring (Haru) 1942 also, it could Mar. ? I have attached a graph showing the dates, type of mounts and quantity of each that I observed. I stopped recording these swords about five years ago.Starstampgraph.docx

It appears to be a Chinese copy to me.

Signed "Sano Naoyoshi with Kao". The no character is not the one that is shown in the Meikan and the kao is a bit off. Only three examples in the Meikan. The work is very good though. He is rated joko in the Meikan. As Tanto54 has said the kashira appears to have had some damage repaired. Shoki's face may have been banged in at sometime?

As Brian has said, there is no question about the star stamped blades. They are 100% gendaito made from tamahagane that was provided to the RJT smiths. Most of them signed with their normal signature and many were top rated smiths such as Sadakatsu, and Akihira(Shohei). Some signed with a pseudo name like Shibata Ka who used Mitsuoki as his RJT signature.

Paul will be sorely missed by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Having known him for about four decades, I must say he was always a real gentleman. RIP Paul.