raaay

adding couple of more pics of the blade etc , sorry my camera is not a very good camera for close up shots of the blade . ray.

HI from ray. thank you koichi and stephen for your help . i will try soon to post a better pic of the tang still finding my way round with my camera etc, so photography is not one of my best subject as you can tell . so basicly the translation is close to what i had , but some better pics of the tang will help to clear up the signiture ! i will try and post a new photo of the tang soon . stephen, here is the old sick'ening part of the story ? the previous owner bought the sword in 1966 for £10.00 and it was the fist sword he ever bought he went on to become a well knowing collector in the sword world in the UK , in the early 1970/80. as you rightly say it is a fantastic gendai-to and it took me a long time to aquire it, and i will be hopefully looking after it for some years to come, but point taking. regards ray.

malcolm the smith looks like kaneyoshi to me as for the rest i am at work at the moment with no access to my limited library and it would take me an age to work it out i think!! you will get a good translation shortly from what i have learned on the board being a new member their are lots of members who are very good at this .. ps - is that a tang stamp at the top of the pic cheers ray.

here is a shin gunto , i have now owned for about 15 years now. in all the time i have had the sword i cant find any info about this smith other than a mention in sloans oshigata book reffering to medals and awards he has won. is there any one got a sword by this smith ? or any other info please . as you can see the mounts are very high quality gunto mounts with a mon on the kabuto gane and a polished same saya and high ranking officers tassel and hanger, it also came with its original dark blue sword bag with a red silk cord . the sword was brought back from a sword surrender in in 1945 buy chap that says to the previous owner he simple went round the swords on the day and picked the best looking sword he could find. the signiture reads i think [ ni-oite - omija-hachiman gu -neguru naotsugu - tsukuru ] if any one can translation the full signiture i would appreciate your help please. the translation passed on to me was - [made in the capital yedo in the grounds of the hachiman shrine by NAOTSUGU. thanks .ray

some more details of the mounts , i hope the pics turn out alright was not sure how to post etc ! hope they are clear enough to be veiwed this is following on from my other post . thanks ray.

still trying to get round the tech-no part of posting sorry for any duff posts. i no this is not very[ PC ] and not every bodies cup of tea ,and it would not be my first choice for mounts from around circa 1850/80 . and i must admit when i first was asked to go and see the [ bone mounted sword ] i allmost did not bother bacause i wrote it of as just an other tourist or trade peice . the mounts are signed with a very soshu looking skript , i can not and dont think i ever will get my head round it at all bad enough on a good day with kanji ,so if any one can help please . ps. i dont know whats the right way up with the signiture !! thanks ray.

sorry / forgot the date showa 1944 i think !! regards ray

looks like [ nobu mitsu ] to me !!! is it a naval mounted sword / reason for that , it looks like a stainless steell tang !!! / sword , usual kaigunto mounts ? showa period. regards ray.

hi , i am ray , a newbie to the board. les stuart is a very good friend of mine as well as a friend of ford , i have had 4/5 swords polished by les , from his early years at polshing, wright up to the present,the last sword polished for me was in 2005/2006. and i was delghted with the finished article. ps ford we have met a couple of times in london in the past i particulary remember drooling over your fantastic naganata you had at the swallow hotel if i remember rightly regards ray