ohshid

thanks for the information/link. the sword is a family heirloom of sorts so i will speak with my father about removing the tsuka and see what he thinks. the small end of the wooden peg is almost completely covered by the wrap, and i'm worried that i will not be able to remove it without damaging/loosening the wrap directly over the peg. can anyone recommend a tool or technique to get pressure onto the peg without pushing up into the wrap? also, hopefully initials are enough for my signature. I don't agree with forcing users to drop anonymity on a completely unencrypted website, as someone in "generation y", i already have plenty of my personal information spread across the web. that said, i genuinely appreciate the help and probably shouldn't be worried about putting information on a small sword forum

here are some additional photos of the sword and hilt. I am still willing to take additional photos with my dslr if requested (tomorrow, 1:20am for me) for clarification, the mark is located on the back of the blade (the non-edged side if my terminology is wrong) on what i would call the pommel. any and all help (even help on getting a digital character for these so i can continue searching myself) will be greatly appreciated. this is for personal knowledge only, and at the moment there are no intentions on this sword ever being sold.

Hello. I would like some help getting a little more information on a Japanese WW2-era sword. I've spent a few hours today looking around on my own, so here's a little back story and my ill-informed thoughts. My terminology will likely be no where correct, so my apologies My great grandfather was a U.S. Senator and received a Japanese sword as a gift from Douglas MacArthur. I found the sword listed in an appraisal from the early '70s, but it didn't really give me any additional information besides confirmation on it's authenticity and mentioning a gold mark that signifies rank. I failed to find any information on that, but i'm thinking it may be the text included in the first picture (most of the other details on the hilt appear to be cherry blossoms, and are more of a bronze color, this is just speculation but possibly the text is in white gold?). I have looked at a few low quality pictures of the hilt on "type 94" swords online and this seems to be more detailed, and couldn't quite match it with any other pictures. I can take high quality pictures tomorrow in proper lighting on a proper camera if requested. Also: I attempted to cross match the text with the titles of the imperial army and navy (as given on wikipedia) but had no luck. I've read that swords were also given to U.S. servicemen and officers during Occupied Japan, so i'm speculating it may have been given to MacArthur or a subordinate after the war had ended. edit: I'm working on uploading 3 additional photos, they're too large so i will need to edit them down first edit 2: Also, because of it's sentimental value and historical significance (at least in my eyes) i will not be attempting to remove the hilt or any other pieces in any way shape or form, that'll be a professional/experts job, so I can not look for markings on the blade.