SteveM

@Bruce Pennington There is no stamp. I think he probably thought the 出羽 in the inscription was a square containing a stamp. (Or maybe he thought the 国 was a stamp).

Ah, sorry about that. I must have been looking at another poster's profile when I mentioned the UK. I'm sure there are posters/members in the Tri-State area that could help you. Just listing it "as is", which is to say a sword that popped out of the woodwork with a well-known name inscribed on it, with no paperwork, and with no high resolution (or at least macro-level) photos of the blade... I don't think anyone will take on much risk based on those conditions. Maybe someone will pay a few hundred bucks just to take a gamble. But really, better photos are a must. The scabbard and the fittings are fine, no need to spend any more time on those. But better photos of the blade are what will catch peoples' attention.

No way to know without better photos of the blade itself, and the condition may prohibit us from seeing any activities in the blade. Fatal flaws hiding under rust will also drastically affect the price. There is nothing obvious in the signature that points to it being fake, but the sword is the thing. The signature is easy to fake: the sword isn't so easy. We usually say the sword confirms the mei - meaning if the sword has the shape and features of a Kunimichi sword, slight variances in the signature can be tolerated. But if the sword doesn't look anything like a Kunimichi sword, it will get rejected as a fake, regardless of how well the signature is executed. So if it were my sword I'd get it in the hands of someone who knows swords well. In the UK I think you have a few options. Maybe some of our UK-based members can comment, or contact you via DM.

Hello Robert, as with most antiques, condition is everything. You'd need to post pictures of the sword to get an idea. WW2 swords can go from, say $500 to a sword in rough, but recognizable condition, to many thousands of dollars for a sword and fittings in pristine condition, especially if the sword is signed by a well-regarded smith, or if there is something unique about the inscription, or if the fittings have something special about them (officer's tassel, or a latch in good working order, etc..). The majority of WW2 swords that we see on the board seem to be worth somewhere around the $1000 mark. That would be for a sword and fittings in decent condition. I should add that if you purchased the sword from a member of this forum, the other members will be reluctant to comment on it, as it is seen as bad form to discuss the price of an item that a member has sold.

Your sword's inscription is 高崎三郎金(繁) Takasaki Saburō Kaneshige It's the smith's name. TAKASAKI is the family name. There is another one like it here Nobody responded to @tbonesullivan's post about why this smith used his full name in the inscription. I think maybe nobody had a clear answer. I don't know anything about this smith, so I have no idea why he used several different signatures

Sword inscription is: 出羽大掾藤原國路 Dewa Daijō Fujiwara Kunimichi Kunimichi is the smith. Fujiwara is a clan name Dewa is the region, and Daijō is a ceremonial title. Kind of like "Vice Governor".

The one I thought was 国 could maybe conceivably be 図. 〰図鐔 makes sense as the first line of a hakogaki, but I'm still at a loss for what 田守 is. It's not really a common word. I thought it might be a poetic word for a flower... I guess the theme of this tsuba is plum. But 田守 doesn't seem to be a poetic word or euphemism for anything. And, I don't really think that third kanji is 図. I'm sort of making wild guesses now.

Looks like 田守国鐔　　　　　But I'm not finding anything online or in Wakayama. Last kanji ought to be 鐔 (tsuba), but I'm not 100% sure of this. In any event, I couldn't find 田守 or 田　国守 anywhere. Not even sure if its an artist or somehow related to the theme? Unusual for a name, but perhaps I'm misreading one/two kanji and have got stuck in a dead end. 鉄地丸形高町象嵌　I would expect 高彫 or something, but it looks like 町 to me. Unsure. 会津正阿弥 Aizu-Shōami 特別貴重認定　　　Tokubetsu Kichō nintei. the last one I can't get; maybe 済 (meaning "already received" the tokubetsu kicho designation.) 高肉？高打？

Interesting. Looks recent, but it is in WW2 mounts. Nothing listed anywhere for this smith, and the blade looks like it is signed in tachi-mei style. Very curious. The writing looks quite competently inscribed. No date on the opposite side, I guess?

The attribution is Fuyuhiro (冬広), not Hisahiro as stated in the post.

法信 Norinobu would be my somewhat unsatisfying guess. EDIT: Another unsatisfying guess would be 江信 (Kōshin), and apparently there is a netsuke artist by this name. So maybe its not so unsatisfying after all.

I think this is a cast replica, and it's best not to dwell too much on errant or missing strokes. If you look at authenticated (papered) works of Nobuyoshi, you can see how his true signature should look. The meanings of the characters themselves aren't so important. Sometimes artists pick the characters for the sound, and sometimes they pick them for the meaning, and sometimes they might be given to them by a mentor or relative. Characters might even be picked because of some superstitious reason (eg. the number of strokes in the kanji character is deemed lucky). I wouldn't rely too much on AI to parse these kinds of historical topics. Sometimes its good, but sometimes it just leads you down pointless dead ends, as its done here.

This is a topic that comes up fairly regularly here on NMB. Every year it seems the number of wartime blades (arsenal blades) that are able to be registered increases. If the sword has a registration card, the authenticating bodies will usually shrug and let the sword through their authentication process. There has been no change in the law, but the rigor with which the registering authorities (varies from prefecture to prefecture) reject arsenal blades seems to be fading with each passing year. There may be some discussion going on at higher levels which allows wartime blades to be viewed as historical and having some artistic merit. It is often hard to tell if the steel used in the sword is tamahagane or commercial steel. The kanteisho for this sword, for example, says the sword has ko-itame grain with jinie, so its possible that the registering body let it pass, the hot-stamp notwithstanding. I think this is a legacy from the post-War occupation that is due for an official reconsideration. The need to distinguish between "art sword" and "weapon" has all but evaporated. These swords are now approaching 100 years of age, so it feels ridiculous and arbitrary to ignore them, or to create an atmosphere where their mere existence is problematic from a legal and commercial standpoint. The market can decide how valuable they are

Kanekado is correct. There are several ways to write each kanji, some forms use abbreviated strokes, or "calligraphic" reductions of kanji. Also, with these wartime blades the blades are often signed by people working under the supervision of a smith, so you see a lot of variation. And the collecting world doesn't really micro-analyze these differences with the wartime smiths, because the quality of the work is kind of homogeneous, with the exception of some individual smiths (or, blades that feature some unique kind of steel). For the majority of wartime blades, the work is optimized for volume production in factory-like conditions, and the swords are oil-quenched to reduce the possibility of breaking. The steel is often industrial, mass-produced steel, rather than tamahagane. So collectors tend not to fret too much over the precise stroke angle/depth/construction for the individual kanji characters on the names of these wartime smiths. The hot stamp is a stylized representation of a Buddhist "ken" (a sword used by the Buddhist figure of Fudō-Myō-ō). If you look in Bruce Pennington's sword stamp survey, you can find another example of it. (Should be a link to that survey at the top banner of this site.) adding the link. Look around page 28, 29.

Looks like 播磨住秀綱守　　Harima-jū Hidetsuna Mori (or mamoru) Harima is a place name in Japan (corresponds to present-day Hyogo Prefecture). "Jū" just means resident of. I'm not 100% sure of the following three characters. Normally one might expect it to be the name of the smith. But in this case it looks like its engraved on the blade part, which is unorthodox for a smith, and the syntax makes me think its a dedication to protect the owner. So I think the last three mean "for the protection of Hidetsuna". (Hidetsuna being the personal name of the owner, presumably).