SteveM

The sword handle (nakago) itself says Nobukuni (信国).

片山則房 長貳尺三寸四分 表裏樋磨上無銘也 代金百五拾枚 明治十四年晩冬鑑定同十六年一月記之 本阿弥長識 Katayama Norifusa Nagasa ni-shaku san-sun yon-bu Omote Ura hi. Suriage mumei nari. Daikin hyaku gojū mai Meiji jūyon-nen bantō. Kantei dō jūrokunen ichigatsu kisuru kore. Hon'ami Chōshoku Katayama Norifusa Length of 2 shaku, 3 sun, 4 bu Groove on both sides. Shortened, mumei (unsigned). 150 gold "mai" Appraised Meiji 14 (1881) winter. Recorded Meiji 16, January. Signed Hon'ami Chōshoku

The Obon Society is a group that tries to repatriate items taken from Japanese soldiers to their families back in Japan. They might be able to help. https://obonsociety.org/eng/ This particular tag is too far gone for me to give any meaningful input.

Not bad at all. I would say On the occasion of enlistment upon the outbreak of the Great East Asia War, early spring. (My guess would be 1942?) Over 380 yen was collected through the sincere efforts of the townspeople of the hometown, and we hereby present this to you: Oura, Saga. Shōbu Michisaburō (could also be read as Dōsaburō).

Correct. Kuni/Koku just means country.

Hello Nicholas, 3rd post down

Hello David, I'll give you the kanji (you already have most of it) and the readings. I'll put it in a way that might make translation easier for you The last 9 are a location name, and a name.

I think they are both related to Fudō-Myōō. To me, the bottom one looks like a slightly sylized version of the letter kan, and the top one is probably kanman (stylized in the same way). The top one is so complicated, it can only be one or two possible bonji. Both represent two different aspects of Fudō-Myōō. The symbol for Fudō-Myōō is a popular bonji on swords since he is is generally depicted as carrying a sword himself, and of course for the spiritual connotations. http://www.kuubokumon.com/bonji.html

Looks fabulous. No reason not to like this blade.

光広軒 Mitsuhiroken 軒 (ken) is a character you usually see at the end of art names, but I could find any such art name as Mitsuhiroken in Wakayama. There were several smiths who used the name Mitsuhiro, with the same kanji as the first two used on your kozuka. Of these, two of these smiths used art names which incorporated 軒 光広 whose real name was Kikuoka, and used the art name of 行風軒 光広 whose real name was Noda, who used the art name of 逍遥軒 Your smith might be one of these two, and the name inscribed on your kozuka was a name that was one that was in use before before a final art name was decided upon.

It says: Genshirō. Family of Mizuno. Extant works of fuchi/kashira signed "Mizuno Genshirō, Kinpu-jū". From Kanazawa city in Kaga. Mid-Edo.

There are three Genshirō smiths in Wakayama. The smith in this thread is the second listing (page 139 in the Japanese edition). Mid-Edo.

Yes, that information from John Slough's book is the same information that you've shown before and its just a repeat of the information available from Japanese sources. It just tells us what we already know: Yoshikane was awarded 5th Seat (Rising Swordsmith) in 1941. It doesn't tell us anything about how large the field was, or how many entries Yoshikane had to submit to get that rank.

Hello Steve, You are asking for information that isn't available to us, as far as I know. There is no resource that tells us how many swords or how many smiths entered into the 1941 competition. The "tosho banzuke" ranking published by Kurihara Hikosaburo in 1942 is a list he himself devised whereby he groups the swordsmiths into general rankings which mirror the sumo wrestler rankings. (The word "banzuke" is taken from the sumo rankings). Its like ranking the swordsmiths in terms of "heavyweight", "middleweight", etc... Only instead of weight, the criteria is "quality", so already you can see it is a subjective ranking system. I couldn't find Yoshikane anywhere in this list. https://www.tsuruginoya.com/infomation/data/iretsu-seidai The "6th Shinsaku Nihonto Danrenkai" in 1941 is something completely separate from the banzuke mentioned above. Again, no idea how many smiths or how many swords were entered. You've got a nice Yoshikane sword from the WW2 era, maybe worth around $1k, as that is what a lot of these swords tend to sell for. This value really doesn't change if we discover 300 or 500 people entered the 1941 contest. The things that will influence its value are its quality, its condition, and the condition of any fittings it comes with. As Geraint says above, trying to pin down the specifics of this 5th Seat is indeed "chasing the wrong rabbit".

The sword is inscribed with the maker's name and location. This means the sword is older than WW2, perhaps by a few centuries. The inscription says 豊州高田住- （藤原行長） Hōshū Takada-jū　(Fujiwara Yuki naga?) the bits in the parenthesis are mostly illegible, but we can make an educated guess based on the preceding bits. In this case it is a really wild guess. The last character may be cut off completely, but that would be a bit weird. Hōshū is a province name in old Japan, corresponding to Fukuoka and Oita in present-day Japan.Takada is a city/location name. The smith's name is illegible, but Fujiwara Yukinaga was a representative smith from this region, and the inscribed name on this sword looks something like Fujiwara Yukinaga. The scabbard and fittings are vintage WW2. The soldier may have refitted an antique family sword with a ww2 scabbard (rather than use a mass-produced arsenal sword).

The sword in the original post is a gassaku with his son also. Aoi really ought to hire a proofreader or editor for his English posts.

Nice sword. I agree with Kirill that the hamon isn't much of a toranba. Other than that, its a decent sword and there is no need to spend too much time worrying about the minor imperfections on this. A sword of this size without any imperfections would surely be twice the price.

Hello Jason, The envelopes are standard NBTHK envelopes. The writing on the envelope just states that the envelope contains a "Tokubetsu Hozon" certificate, and they give the address of the NBTHK on the reverse side. In pencil it notes Esshū Mitsuyuki. (Its common for dealers and collectors to write the smith's name on the outside of the envelope). The paper inside is the explanatory notes for a Mitsuyuki tantō that received a Jūyō classification in Shōwa 54 (1979). It notes that Mitsuyuki blades with inscriptions on them are rare, and that this particular tantō (the one submitted in 1979) was an important reference work since it was signed and had a date inscribed on it. The date on the tantō was Kakei-era (the exact year is illegible). However, the Kakei era was only three years long, from 1387-1389, so that tantō was very likely either 1388 or 1389. My guess is that the smith is so obscure, the person included a copy of this entry from the 1979 Jūyō classification as a reference. Note that Esshū is the proper way to translate what Aoi calls "Etsushu". Aoi Art knows a lot about swords, but their translations are often very bad.

OK, I'm doing a crappy job of this. Let me try another way: The blade in the original post could be Kansei, and therefore could plausibly be shōshin Masahide (1st generation). The blade in the original post could be Bunsei, and therefore could plausibly be shōshin Masahide 2nd. I'm not clever enough to proclaim it gimei based on the few photos posted here. It would be best to look at the blade itself rather than the signature. But I suspect Sebastien has already given up on this sword and moved on.

OK - try this one. From Markus's site. Anyway, now the possibility exists that the sword in the original post could be from either 1st or 2nd generation Masahide. I'm not arguing that the possibility of this being shōshin Masahide is high, I'm arguing that the sword ought to be judged rather than the signature.

↑ Yes that is what we are talking about. Specifically I was speculating that Masahide may have continued to use "Masahide" even after he began to use Amahide. In other words, I was suggesting that he could have used both signatures for a while, and that (as always) we ought to try judge the sword first and not the signature. In my example above, I was attempting to show that there were extant, verified signatures of "Masahide" after Bunsei 2, but Piers was right and the sword I linked to was actually "Amahide". But it didn't take me too long to find another Masahide exampe (this time from Bunsei 5). https://toyuukai.com/2012/05/水心子白熊入道正秀（刻印）　文政五年二月日/

The inscription is top picture 昭和十四年九月吉日 Shōwa jyūyonnen kugatsu kichijitu (a lucky day in September, 1939). The first character is unreadable, but we can infer it from the context. bottom picture 越後住貞清 Echigo-jū Sadakiyo (Made by "Sadakiyo" of Echigo province). Here too, the first characters are almost illegible, but we can infer them from the name of the swordmaker. It's a sword made for Japan's imperial army.

Sorry for the necropost, I was looking at various Jakushi signatures for that other, recent post, and I came across this one. Not a lot of new info, just wanted to fill in the missing blanks. 長崎若芝作 Nagasaki Jakushi-saku 鐵雲龍鐔 Tetsu Unryū tsuba 鉄地丸形角耳 Tetsu-ji, maru gata, kado mimi 雲龍肉彫 Unryū nikubori 金布目象嵌 Kin nuno-me zōgan 銘若芝享保頃　Mei "Jakushi" Kyōhō-koro (1716-1736) 昭和三十七年七月川口陟識 July, 1962, Kawaguchi Noboru (shirusu)

When I saw the signature I first thought of Jakushi, but this isn't Jakushi. However, the second kanji looks amazingly like the sōsho version of Jaku (若). I can't read the first character. I'm wondering if anyone knows of a smith whose second syllable/character is jaku/waka? 囗若　（花押）

It says 贈相京大佐殿 大西上等兵 To Colonel Aikyō From Ōnishi PVC There actually was a Colonel Masao Aikyō in Borneo at the end of WW2.