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Stevensonbak

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    Steven Biernacki

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  1. Thanks a lot for the translation, John S! We can possibly infer that the sticker indicates the material of the saya.
  2. Hello Everybody! A link can be found at the bottom of this post to pictures of the wakizashi in question. This is probably the roughest piece that I've handled so far, and the tang has no maker's mark of any kind, but there is a sticker on the saya that has kanji I can't identify. The first kanji almost looks like,"木", but I can't identify the second one at all. I believe it says "77" on the right, and it seems someone used a blue color pen to turn the second "7" into an "8". The story is pretty standard; according to the current owner, the original owner of this blade was her late father, a WWII marine veteran, and she claims that he acquired it during his service in the Pacific theater along with a Type 38 rifle and a Vetterli bayonet (I cannot explain the presence of an obsolete Swiss/Italian bayonet in the Pacific...) As always, I would also appreciate any information I can get on the blade itself, but there isn't too much to go on. As I mentioned, there are no markings to be found on any of the pieces. The wooden saya is in very poor condition, it has split down the middle and is held together with old twine, and one side is missing some wood, although the kurikata is still intact. The blade is in no better condition, I think the pictures speak mostly for themselves, and the edge is chipped in places. One of the seppa are missing, the tsuba is unadorned, and the pommel has some artwork on it. Strangely, the mekugi seems to be too long for the handle, it actually sticks out about an 1/8th of an inch when pushed in fully and slips out on its own. I would appreciate any information about the wakizashi itself if there is anything worth discussing about it. I probably normally wouldn't give the kanji sticker much attention, but it's all I have to go on with this piece! Here is the link to the picture gallery: http://www.imgur.com/a/xIgkx Thanks in Advance as always!
  3. I have updated my signature, thank you for informing me about this rule. Everyone, I greatly appreciate your honesty and input on this matter, I would not benefit from white lies about the authenticity about any items that I inquire about here. I also appreciate your concern as well about the financial aspect of how I acquired this sword, so I will elaborate on that subject to clear things up. The person I received this from is actually a friend of one of my personal colleagues, and neither my colleague nor the owner had any true knowledge of the piece, so my colleague referred the man to me because I was the only person they trusted to give them an honest and frank opinion on the blade. No money has actually been exchanged, but he did express interest in possibly selling it, although I could see he had no idea what would have liked to receive for it, and I did not want to take advantage of the situation. So all I had to go off on was my prior knowledge in dealing with these swords, but this one definitely struck me as unorthodox in some way, which is why I am here... I noticed this immediately as well, but due to my inexperience I did want to count it as a red flag initially because I wasn't sure if that possibly could have been a deliberate decision by the smith. I know now that these motifs are consistently positioned in the way that a person holding the sword can see the design properly. Again, I chiefly came here to see what I can learn based off the mei translation (Thanks SwordGuyJoe!), but I see that red flags arise from pretty much everything else about the piece, so again I appreciate your honesty everyone. I will relay the news to the gentleman, I hope he doesn't have any hard feelings towards his pops! I suppose this is just another old case of, "My Dad Gave Me His Luger..." that I hear quite often in my time. Thanks again everyone for your time, although I did not intend to waste it! I admit I personally collect and study European arms and armor more often than Far Eastern arms, so your help is very invaluable to me on these matters. Thank You!
  4. Hello Everyone, A sword came into my possession today, and as with anything I plan to keep for my own collection, I would like to know as much about the piece as possible. And as always, I have reached the step where I would like to translate the writing that I have found on the piece. In this case, there is a very visible mei on the tang and additional writing on the tsuba. Here is a link to the gallery for the sword, the mei pictures are towards the end: http://imgur.com/a/eDe6E In terms of the known history of the sword, the story is pretty typical: I received this sword from a gentleman who has had it in his personal possession for about 15 years, who had the sword handed down to him from his father, a WWII veteran serving in the Pacific Theater. How exactly the veteran received the sword himself is a mystery, and no associated paperwork or certificates are present with the sword. The main focus of this thread would be to determine the translation for the mei and inscription, but I am also curious about the general nature and history of the piece itself, the extra information would be greatly appreciated! I will tell you what I have observed so far. The tsuka appears to be pre-war based on condition and design, fairly old looking. Most of the metal pieces appear to be made of brass, I would assume the skin on the handle would be stingray, and the wrapping is made of some sort of cloth (not silk). The blade itself is great condition besides the tang. It has definitely never been sharpened, and is in fact quite dull, which is reminiscent of what I have seen in Type 98 blades. Finally, the scabbard is made of wood, and painted with a dark burnt umber-kind of brown paint. The scabbard has a matching brass design and the sageo is also made of cloth. Unfortunately, the bottom of the scabbard splits slightly when the sword is sheathed, you can see the crack that runs down the middle of the foot of the scabbard that it splits along. The mekugi was also damaged, with only one half of it remaining, but other than that I did not find any other significant damage. If you have any other questions, specifications, or need pictures of a specific part I overlooked, let me know. I appreciate any and all input you all can give me! Link To Gallery: http://www.imgur.com/a/eDe6E Thank You!
  5. Thank you for writing out the kanji in ASCII format, it made it very easy for me to learn the writing structure of dates in the Japanese calendar format. Kanji search databases are fickle because they put a lot of emphasis on stroke order for an accurate search, so you saved me a lot of trouble in this regard.
  6. My lens is actually a 70-300mm telescopic lens, but I admit I don't have a proper tripod. Nevertheless, I borrowed a friend's smartphone with a third-party zoom attachment. Here are higher fidelity pictures of the sai:
  7. Thanks a lot for all of your input everyone, and I apologize for the poor pictures of the mei; I do not currently have a macro lens for my DSLR and my phone camera is useless. Based on what you have all told me, I think we can all agree now this is a low quality late-war shingunto, although I am glad to see that it does not seem to be missing any parts besides the mekugi, sageo, and tassel. Thank You George for your input of the swordsmith's name; I thought because this was a rushed model the manufacturer would be more vague. If I get a proper macro lens, I will retake the mei pictures and post them here and in the gallery in case anyone is still curious.
  8. Hello Everyone, I am a casual collector of military items, including katanas, and I came across a rather battered and unusual looking one recently that I would like to share with you. Any information is greatly appreciated, but I am most interested in finding out roughly where and when it was made if possible based off of what mei inscriptions on the tang translate to. Here is a link to the gallery for the sword, the mei pictures are towards the end: http://www.imgur.com/a/AwjaL I received this from a young man who inherited it from his deceased father, but since the son did not even know his father owned the sword nor was there any paperwork regarding the piece left behind, I do not have any other personal history about the katana besides that. I did the best I could to take detailed pictures of the exposed tang. I would really appreciate translations for the mei inscriptions, that would definitely shine light on the blade's origins. If you have any other questions or need pictures of a specific part I overlooked, let me know. I know this katana is extremely rough and incomplete, but it still intrigues me nonetheless. Link To Gallery: http://www.imgur.com/a/AwjaL Thank You!
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