SteveM

伊賀茶盌 偉央 Iga chawan Isamu I think maybe this guy https://utougama.wixsite.com/isamu-umehara/works

This is what you have on your sword. *Note the second kanji looks substantially different from the one I inserted, because the kanji on the sword is a seldom-used variant that doesn't exist in my font set on my computer. The last kanji which is partially visible is, I believe, the top part of 宗 (mune). It is not the top part of 高. There will have been a second kanji under the 宗, but that is entirely gone and we can only speculate on what it might have been. 澄 is my guess because there was a swordsmith named Munesumi (宗澄) from Sesshu who signed in that style.

I would also like to thank Thomas (and a big tip of the hat to Nick Komiya). This kanji remained stubbornly hidden from me no matter what I put into the search engine. Finding that old dictionary entry is like blowing the dust away from a hieroglyphic so that it is finally revealed. I tried to reproduce it again here so that the various bots and spiders can index it and reference this page should any future translators search for this kanji, but it wouldn't display correctly. I wonder why Thomas was able to post it. Something to do with unicode or truetype or jis... Anyway, I'll post as an image and a link. https://glyphwiki.org/wiki/u292e1 https://jigen.net/kanji/168673

Looks very interesting. I have no idea what it says. Well, I can pick out the word 三月 (March) and other bits and pieces (議, 道, and the odd hiragana here and there), but nothing that helps me figure out what it says in its entirety. Its almost as if the first section (on the right) is setting up the following sections, which are arranged more like a poem. Maybe a letter, or an explanation of a poem?

Wim's reading and translation (and Bruce's verification) are correct. If you've checked out the Wikipedia entry for Hiroshi Nemoto, you've already got all the basic info. I would probably translate 佩刀 (haitō) as "sword" and leave it at that. Chūjō just means "lieutenant general" as above, so googling that phrase alone won't pull up anything useful.

1. 吉祥紋散透鐔　Kichijō-mon chirashi sukashi tsuba (auspicious designs in fretwork) 無銘 Mumei 古金工 Kokinkō 丸形山銅石目地小透 Maru-gata yamagane ishime-chi kosukashi 毛彫覆輪耳 Kebori fukurin mimi 2. 鉞と杵透鐔　無銘越前　Masakari to kine sukashi tsuba. Mumei, Echizen. (Axe and hammer designs in fretwork) 隅切角形　鉄磨地 Sumikirikado-gata Tetsumigaki-chi 地透覆輪耳 Chisukashi fukurin mimi Hard to decide what to translate and what to leave in the original Japanese. The tsuba (and sword) world tends to use the original terms as is.

I think it is Fujiwara, which, as Tom mentions is the usual way of signing. Its just that the photo is so close, the bottom part of the Fujiwara kanji (藤原) is emphasized to the point where it looks like a different kanji. 濃州関住二十三代藤原兼房作之

Yes - looks like Kanenami. WW2 smith. 兼波 The same smith as the one here http://bocho-kobidou.com/katana-03-093/

建依別山囗善貞（花押） Tateyoriwake Yama(?) Yoshisada + kaō Tateyoriwake is an unusual name, originating in Japanese mythology, and appearing on at least one other sword posted to this site http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/30320-help-translating-gendaito/ making me think it is a name used by a specific group or school of smiths. Yama-something Yoshisada would be the specific name of the swordsmith (or his art name). I can't make out the kanji after Yama.

1277, or every 60th year after that up to 1997 (1337, 1397, etc..). Or every preceding 60th year. So there are a lot of possibilities. I don't think that piece of paper is 700-800 years old. I would say your most likely candidates are something from the past 200 years - maybe 1937. Cloth and paper just doesn't hold up that well through the years unless it is very well protected from light and moisture, bugs, etc...

Suzumushi　鈴虫 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meloimorpha_japonicus Very nice menuki, by the way.

Could be from a classic poem (by Shinran, 12th-13th c.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinran 箸鷹のみよりの羽風ふき立て　おのれとはらう袖の白雪 No available translation, so again I'll give it a shot The hawk flapping its wings, blows the snow from my sleeve

You got a few right. Many, or most of these kanji are read together as compound words, so 日夕 go together to form one word; nisseki (day and night, or all night and day). Unfortunately most of the kanji following that opening word are far to reduced for me to make any sense of them. You got "40 years" right, as well as 57th. The small writing in the bottom left of the scroll would be a dedication and the name of the person who wrote the scroll. So it would be something like a scroll given to a teacher from the 57th reunion of a class. I'm wondering if it isn't addressed to a Tanaka-sensei (田中先生)? The rest is too abridged for me. Edit: Also note that it is not actually ancient writing. It is just a cursive form of calligraphy - its used even today in calligraphy and wherever there is a need for a stylistic cursive text.

Left picture: 素志與白雲同悠 A classical Chinese poem from Rong Wang (5th century). I don't have a translation, but something like "A pure mind is calm, like the distant clouds" Under that is a date. March in the year of the cow, (in the sexegenary cycle of fire and cow - hinotoushi in Japanese).

Hello Robert - this is where Wakayama lets me down. Sōsei (宗政) is listed as having been active "mid-Edo", but Wakayama doesn't list specific birth dates (or pronunciation for that matter, so I am guessing at Sōsei as it is consistent with other Yokoya artists's names). As I say I offer it with some hesitation as the artist seems to be obscure, and I have no other examples to go by. I am still on the fence as to the inscription on the right side. Robert Mormile's suggestion has made me search on a number of things trying to cast some light on the possibility of the date given (and referencing that date with the terse and often cryptic Wakayama entries). What I can say is: If the first kanji is 萬, the date must be either 萬治 Manji (1658 -1661) or 萬延 Man'en (1860 - 1861) To me the second kanji doesn't look like either 治 or 延, so I have some doubts already. The first kanji vaguely looks like 萬, but to me it looks even closer to the grass script version of 蔓, which is also pronounced "man", but it is a kanji that doesn't get much use except in specialized contexts. Anyway, you can see that by this time I've already got one foot in the weeds. Wakayama says Sōsei was an apprentice of Sōyo (宗與), however there were at least three generations of Sōyo, two at the beginning of Edo, and one at the end. So as a plausible date, Manji (万治) is compatible with an apprenticeship to the first Sōyo, but I take a step farther into the weeds here because I'm not convinced Sōsei is who I should be looking for in the first place, and, as I said before I don't like the looks of Manji, so I feel this is a dead-end. Man'en is so short of an era, that it ends in February of Man'en 2. Then the era name changes to Bunkyū. So an October date of Man'en 2 is technically invalid. I'm willing to entertain some wiggle room on the date, but to me the final two kanji don't look like October (十月) and overall its incompatible with a "mid-Edo" artist - either Sōsei or Sōmin, so the doubts start piling up. Maybe try sending to Markus. Or, maybe Moriyama-san or Morita-san can weigh in.

I'm not 100% sure of 政, mind you. The big name would be Yokoya Sōmin (宗珉), but to me the final kanji before the kaō doesn't look much like 珉. It does vaguely resemble 政, and there was a 横谷宗政 who signed that way with a kaō, so I offer that as a plausible candidate.

The left side looks to me like 横谷宗政（花押）Yokoya Sōsei (kao). I can't get the right side.

I don't think this would be considered a very high quality artwork. It is a decorative art, just meant to provide color in a corner of the house. I'm now not sure about the one at after 鉄岩. I don't like the way the vertical stroke pokes through the top horizontal stroke. This shouldn't happen with 画. Maybe its 書? Maybe it is some completely different thing.

Oops, those four kanji aren't the name of the artist. Those kanji refer to the piece itself (purple rattan with swallows) . Next to that is what looks like the artist's name (鉄岩画), but I'm not sure how to pronounce this.

It has the name of a Chinese artist, Liu Xuejian, 紫藤双燕 on it. If you drop those 4 kanji into a search engine you should be able to find similar works.

According to wikipedia, Tobari Shiro was General in the late 70s, and retired in 1980. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%B8%E4%B8%8A%E5%B9%95%E5%83%9A%E7%9B%A3%E9%83%A8

Yes this is a woodblock print. The other kanji are hard to read. A better picture (close up) of those kanji might help to find out more details about this print. It looks like its a picture of warblers (uguisu - 鶯) and geese (ga - 鵞), but I'm not an ornithologist and I would like to see the kanji better because neither of my suggestions looks like a solid match. I have some doubts. The one next to suzuributa is also eluding me. Something 画?

Yes they are all legitimate kanji. The first one is just names, with 必勝 (certain victory) written in large at top of the flag. The picture cuts off the name of the person for whom the item was intended. The red seals in the flag shown in the second, third, and fourth pictures, are from shrines (Izumo Taisha, Hirahama Hachimangu). The very spirited large writing is a slogan and has the name of the person for whom the flag was given/intended (Mr. Okada...I can't get his first name). It was sent to Mr. Okada by the principal of the Shimane Seinen Shihan school, which was a school in Izumo city, Shimane Prefecture, that was in operation during the war. It was a forerunner of the current Shimane University. I reckon the names around the flag are from classmates and teachers. The flag in the last picture has the words 祝出征 (congratulations on going off to war), and a suspiciously few names and random slogans written on it. It was apparently presented to a Matsuo Jiro (松尾次郎), which is a pretty common name. While I can guarantee that the kanji are real kanji, I cannot guarantee that any of these flags are authentic items from the middle of last century. Flags are more easily faked than swords. The one in the middle, from Shimane Prefecture, looks to be the most interesting, because it has a specific, traceable name and location on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izumo-taisha

The native Japanese romanization systems prefer the visual and organizational symmetry over the accuracy of pronunciation. The reason for this is that the Japanese systems were designed primarily from a Japanese perspective, and the main function was to allow Japanese to easily render Japanese words into English spellings. The most immediately apparent effect is in the たちつてと line of kana, which in the Nihon/Kunrei system is written as ta, ti, tu, te, to, while in the Hepburn system it is written as ta, chi, tsu, te to. In the Nihon/Kunrei system, the emphasis is on ease and simplicity (one kana = two letters). Hence つ is rendered as tu, and ち is rendered as ti in the Japanese systems. The result is romanizations which cause inaccurate English pronunciations. In addition, it causes conflict and confusion when Japanese words end up with the same spelling as common English words. In other words, the brass band instrument "tuba" ends up with the same spelling but different pronunciation from the Japanese sword hand-guard. So the Nihon/Kunrei system is fine for Japanese people up until about the end of elementary school, but after that, and when Japanese come into contact with foreign people, the deficiencies of the Nihon/Kunrei system become obvious, and the Hepburn system starts to get used, and indeed is used in most official documents and street signs and train station names, business documents etc.... Hence the name of one of the biggest firms in Japan is Mitsubishi instead of Mitubisi, What I think we see in the 1930's proclamation is the effect of a creeping nationalism, and a general feeling that Japanese needn't compromise to please foreigners. Rather than use the foreign-made Hepburn system, which allows for ease of use by foreigners, it becomes preferable in 1930s Japan to use the Nihon/Kunrei system, which is supposedly easier for Japanese to use, and that the onus of figuring out how to pronounce those words accurately is on the foreigners.

OK, what I thought might be 鬼 (devil), might actually be 兎 (rabbit).