Dave R

I also think that the items at top have a complicated history, with old genuine mounts and pieces salted through with dubious stuff. If anyone wanted to move on a damaged or very poor condition (unsaleable) Nihonto, sticking some genuine(ish) WW2 mounts on it would make an otherwise junk blade readily saleable, because militaria sells by a different criteria to Nihonto.

It's always a problem when stuff is jumbled up, it's why I get a bit twitchy when someone piggybacks on a thread with a different item. This style keeps turning up and I thinks it's a legit Showa empire piece, but whether it's for Manchuria or Chinese collaborators I cannot say.

Sell it on Ebay..... Only joking! Generally they were made with vegetable tanned leather which is prone to rot, and the quality varied a lot. I have one that is top quality bridle leather, and others that show all the signs of late war shortages. The stitching is usually too fine to restitch as well. As suggested above, replace it with an original.

There are some examples here with photo's, but I would be wary. These are not official arms but substitutes and survival knives, much like the tanto that turn up in just wood and leather mounts. http://ohmura-study.net/762.html

A Japanese brides wedding dagger?

This looks very like one of those blades still in shirasaya that then had the minimum done to make it serviceable in combat. Traditional tsuba as well. A nice find indeed.

RIP.

The giveaway is bright un-patinated brass, as always. The real ones have a copper finish, with yellow brass highlights.

I think a "Bitser", possibly an original very very worn blade, and the rest a grab bag of replica parts. The leather of the saya is a give-away, it should be vegetable tanned with very small stitches.

Western Bayonet blade in Japanese mounts... I know nothing else about this piece, and it has been discussed elsewhere.

There look to be a few genuine parts on it, but overall, yep it's a fake.

Does a damn good German style beer, no one wanted to close down the German founded brewery and it still runs today. Sometimes governments get it right!

I have seen a couple of them, and they are very good..... It gets harder every year!

Big fairs small fairs, I enjoy them all. I rarely leave without something of interest.

There is also an arms and militaria fair regularly held at Pudsey, Leeds. Fingers crossed! There are usually a couple of dealers with Nihonto there.