grapppa

John C, excellent suggestion! I measured them and the tsuka is about 1.5mm larger; thats probably within tolerances/accuracy that was customary (?) I took off all of the fittings; the screw hole lined up well but the mekugi hole on the blade (rear) was off center to the upper left. It may be possible to insert the peg at an angle to compensate... Bottom line, if I decided to make modifications to improve the fit - the habaki would have to have about 1mm-2mm removed. I am hesitant to do this.... I am thinking that there may be something internal to the tsuka that may be interfering....hmmmmm

The screw is steel and the threads are worn down pretty significantly...

Tensho, I looked at the alignment of the holes and while the screw hole can be aligned, the mekugi hole seems to be off by 1/4" or so It is somewhat difficult to get an accurate picture of the situation, see pic. I would swear on a stack of bibles that this tsuka is original to the sword, so it stands to reason that the habaki may be the culprit. I will have to go through some more examples of late war swords to see if most, if not all, had habakis that matched the shinogi geometry....

Yes. The habaki is about 1/8" off from the shinogi. I would think that since brass was scarce, they used whatever habakis were available - and fit them to the blade even with the mismatched shinogi/shinogi ji geometry.

Bruce, the screw and peg were in a bag apart from the tsuka...so it was already loosely assembled when I got it...

Acquired this sword recently at the SOS show....the tang inscriptions are discussed here https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/48028-late-war-1944-pattern-officers-sword-rinji-seishiki-1940-date-inscription/ Blade measures 27" from tsuba to tip.. This variety has a screw and a peg...and from what I can see - it will be very difficult to get the screw to line up with the embedded nut and the holes...

Thank you all!

Not sure - another 'na' ?

There are 3 stamps on the blade. Below, Small ‘Na’ inspection stamp of the Nagoya Arsenal. Mune stamp looks like shichi

well - I think I buggered up the photos as the closeups seem harder to discern than the far away shot! Thanks for your help!

pic 2 (ju) - hachi - ?

My take is - pic 1 sho - wa - ju

I recently purchased a this sword - mei on both sides - however, what I think is a date inscription is very very lightly struck and hard to discern. The maker, on the other hand, is much easier; Kaneyoshi I believe. I can discern 6 mei. to be continued with more pics.... I will post details of the sword in the Military section later....

ChrisW, I very much suspected this to be a put-together example as it didnt conform to any of the known variations - at least in my 2 references (F&G, Dawson). Thank you.

This is a bit of an odd bird - although there apparently were many variations of the Kyu gunto. The fittings look somewhat plain - the pattern on the hilt is like police; however there are military 10 petal blossoms. And its shortish - 20" long. Reminds of a police saber lengthwise - 20". thanks in advance.