dchargerman

Thanks Patrick! I will still post better pictures. I had to use a cheezy camera phone. I am just so buisy that I just need to make time to take better pics. If that is the translation I would love to know where to look to find out all I can about that smith. I tried several web searches but only found smiths who had either that first name or that last name but no one named Hayakawa Kanemichi. I assume he was just a lesser known smith. There are no stamps on the blade. I was certain the first two kanji were tan shu. But I think Hayakowa is closer. The tanto is not signed but the kogutana is. How often does the utility knife get signed? I want to try translating it myself but I will also post it here.

This is the Mei on my Katana. Sorry for the pic quality. I will take better pics later. I can not find any kanji that match this style. The first two should be the province which I believe it "Tanshu". The last may be the "Saku". This was a WW2 bring back in shin gunto mounts with wooden saya and leather covering. It has no arsenal stamps of any kind. I was told that the blade is from the mid 1800's Here is the Tanto with Kogutana It was also a vet bring back but except for the brown silk on the handle (raya?) it has all antique mounts. The Tsuba and Menuki have real gold inlayed in them. The Menuki is monkey riding boar. The fushi seem to have family mons on them and their is a piece of bone or claw embeded in the suka (barely visible in the pic). It also appears to have some type of capture paper glued to the saya.