Bruce Pennington

Nice, and the whole sword looks to be quite nice as well!

@Cuirassier - any stamps?

I recently heard (on one of these threads) that his son Chris has also passed away. Jackson, I also agree that it would be important to have a look at the blade, especially the nakago (tang). If the blade is a fake, too, I would hate to see it go into legit kaigunto mounts. You can often find kaigunto fittings for sale on ebay, Invaluable.com, and Proxibid.com, but after all the expense and trouble, you'd be better off just buying a good kaigunto.

This might help?

I answered that already, just before your post - that name was used from the 1300s to the 1800s - that's why you need to have the guys at the Nihoto forum look it over They are both legit. The stamped numbers are assembly numbers put there to keep the custom fitted parts together as they go through production process. Each blade is slightly different from the next, so fittings are customized to fit a specific blade. The numbers keep them together with the blade. The size difference is due to the fact that the signed blade is an old family blade that had to be retrofitted in military gear. Sometimes this was done at an arsenal, sometimes at a private shop. Whoever did this one might not have had the time or resources to make an exact fit.

I can only assume that $83 was laid out to imply it would be sent in after our help! Ha! The hash marks are modified Roman numerals for "40", which matches the stamped 40 on the chuso (latch). You might want to post that over on the NIHONTO FORUM for further evaluation as that name was used from the 1300s to the 1800s

Another fence, posted by @PatB HERE.

Interesting that the writer mistook the samurai's waki to be for suicide. Also interesting that they made a point to lay out the argument that swords collected after the war's end were to be distributed among all. There must have been some front-line guys grumbling about office clerks getting swords!

A clouds & rain habaki presented in gold/silver combo, found in this Guns.ru thread by Бирмач.

Perfect, I see that now, thank you!

Thanks for the help, guys!

Well by golly, after you said that, I checked the Japaneseswordindex.com Oshigata page and it's a match! Just can't imagine he was cutting "Yama" this way, but he did.

I think this is Yoshiomi, but Sesko has him as YOSHIOMI (義臣), Shōwa (昭和, 1926-1989), Gifu – “Yoshiomi” (義臣), real name Takeyama Kazuo (武山数男), born April 3rd 1910, he was the younger brother of Yoshinao (義尚) and worked as guntō smith, ryōkō no retsu (Akihide) But this looks like "Takamasa" rather than Takayama 武山

Colin, I can't find a good website page that breaks it all down. Lots of history pages that describe it in wordage, but no kanji. I've picked it up from guys doing translations over the years, like this one: It can be hard to recognize (for me, anyway) the first 2 kanji, depending upon the writing style, but you can always spot the 2 thousand 6, 皇紀二千六百年拾月日 – 2600 Imperial year (1940), 10th month. If it's a year after 1940, you will see a number 1, 2, 3, etc between these two kanji - 皇紀二千六百年拾月日 like this: 皇紀二千六百三年仲冬 (Imperial year 2603, mid winter)