Hi all. I've had a sword floating around the house for a while and the other day I decided to try and do some research on it. According to a member on another forum (Reddit), it's an antique Japanese tanto from the shinshinto period. I took it apart to take some pictures of the tang, and there were quite a few markings on the tsuba that I was hoping you guys might be able to help decode. There were no markings on the tang, so I'm hoping that the tsuba might be able to tell me a little more about the history of the sword. I know that the fittings were changed pretty often, but this would at least give me a jumping off point. I only have a few pictures of it, but they should be clear enough to read the writing and see the design. I can provide more pictures if needed. Thanks in advance for your help.
Since one of my pictures is more than halfway to the file size limit, here's a link to an album I made with a bunch of pictures of the sword. http://imgur.com/a/WzV2m