Bruce Pennington

Rob, To get back to your original question, It's a Type 98 Japanese officer sword. The brown/blue tassel is for company grade officers - Lt's & Capt's. The Type 98 was made from 1938-1945, yours being made in 1943. You can read up on the style sword on Ohmura's excellent site here: Military Swords of Imperial Japan (Guntō) (ohmura-study.net) Lots of history there and excellent photos.

I am way out of my league, so that's why I'm asking for you Nihonto guys to comment. Evidence? The only evidence I know to look for is the "black peaks" in the tops of the hamon waves. I see none, therefore, I assume water quench. If you see some, please show me. Otherwise, I know nothing else to look for. Edit: My observation was based upon the first set of photos. Now, after seeing the latest, I believe the black peaks are here???:

A guy over on Wehrmacht-awards had a couple of tsuka screws made and only needed 1. So he's wanting to find someone who needs the other one. First guy to respond gets it. And please only someone that needs it for their 95, not someone just wanting to sell it on fleabay. Thanks.

Remember the adage: "never say never, nor always with WWII gunto!"

Really nice sword, Rob! The numbers on the end of your tsuka are "34" and might match numbers on your metal fittings like seppa and tsuba. Boy, that hamon sure looks water quenched to me. Any of you nihonto guys care to evaluate?

I'm a bad person to speculate as I don't study these, but that's the first thing I thought of when I saw that unusual sakura. A lot of the guys take the weekend off, but between now and Monday, @SteveM, @Kiipu, or @BANGBANGSAN will helps us out.

Here's a partial one on a Type 95, found by @Beater

Both Dawson and Plimton show a vast variety of police sword variations, several of them numbered on the handguard, like this. But none of them have the 10 petal sakura, nor the quite unusual sakura on the other side, and they all have a police badge somewhere on the handle. Plain, unadorned backstraps tend to be classified as patrolman and sergeant swords. Dawson has some unknown, custom swords he calls "police like", and a couple of them have 10 petal sakura on the curly thingy on the top end of the handguard. Waiting for @lonely panet or other police sword experts to chime in on this baby. Also could use a translation of the number.

Now that I see the "SU" on your seppa & tsuba, I could easily see a sloppy Su 10 in that paint. It's missing the back "leg" of the Su, but like I say, it's sloppy

Just noticed the photos of the late war Yoshinao went dead. I must have posted photo links rather than the actual photos. Good reason to always post photos, not links! Here's the photos from my file:

This sword does seem to fit this description. Thanks Trystan!

Another nice mon, posted by @Onigoroshi HERE.

Thanks for the photo of the habaki, Oni. Quite beautiful.

What's that on the habaki, Oni? A mon?

Posting some photos. It's on a Yoshimichi blade. Poor George will be disappointed his blade isn't the one and only! We have 3 now.

Again, unique in that the artwork is chiseled in, rather than cut out. I don't study horimono, so I could be wrong, but I've never seen someone draw horimono that way. More work than you would expect from a faker factory. But, who knows.

The first one is mostly obscured by rust. The only kanji I see might be "naga". # 2 is probably 勝則 (Katsunori) 北川 勝一 The third is unsigned. The paint is a number "975", just assembly numbers.

I don't know what it is, but it's not Japanese. We have an automatic tendency, not undeserved, to call these Chinese fakes. I have done so many times. Yet, the occupied territories had their own sword industry during the war, for their own people. Both fake and island swords are so poorly made, it is often impossible to know the difference. I have never seen an attempt at horimono on either fake or island swords. So this is a new one on me. What do you say Trystan, @BANGBANGSAN?

After comparing his blade to the one I have on file, thanks to @robinalexander, I think they are 2 different swords. George's has a silver habaki and, though not a good photo, the other one appears to be brass. Also the hamon is not the same: They are both in shirasaya, but the sale Rob showed said it was a waki. Hard to say exactly, but I don't think George's is a wak.

Well that's an odd thing to see. I can clearly see one tip of a sakura. I thought at first I could see two, but after setting it beside a known stamp, I'm not sure about the one on the left. The use of the Showa stamp and large Seki overlapped from 1940 - 1942 with the majority overlap being in 1941, which aligns with the date of your blade perfectly. So that supports the idea this was stamped, and then polished out? to add the Seki stamp. Issues - it looks more like a stain, matching the coloration of the rest of the stain below it. And a big one, I had not thought of earlier - it's considerably high on the nakago, to the point of being above the machi on the blade. I would leave it in the "I don't know" category. But I've added it to the file on your blade.

Ha! Love it! Now I'm almost as famous as Stephen! So, is this George one of our Georges?

Thanks to @John C for bringing this to our attention. A craigslist sale posted HERE. What's unique is the blue Seki approval sticker on the saya. The seller says the blade and saya are mismatched because the chuso does not line up with the saya. I personally say this - We believe the saya with these labels are late war. We also think "island swords" are late war. Wouldn't the stickered saya be a logical thing to see on a late-war blade? To me, they support each other in legitamacy.

If I were going, the first stop would be at Piers' house, @Bugyotsuji, to have a drink and ogle his collections! I have only been to Tokyo and Narita, both for work. Didn't enjoy Tokyo as it is, like all major cities, very crowded and the tourist sites are so spread around I spent $80 USD just on transportation. The Palace was closed, as it was New Years Day. Narita has an Old Town with a HUGE temple area. That was quite interesting. Sorry, not much help, but maybe it will get the ball rolling with real recommendations from other guys.

Hm. European theatre. Now it's even more mysterious how he came upon a Japanese sword! Same thing with my Dad's Mantetsu. He was in the Marines after Korea. I never asked him how he got his sword. Just assumed he won it in a poker game or some such thing.

Excellent photos, Ray, just what I needed!