Bruce Pennington

Here's a nice one John, with all the pins. For sale HERE.

Here's an odd one. #39, crudely broken off nakago jiri, black "navy" same', in Type 98 fittings, and likely a post war ito wrap. I personally think the whole set of fittings is likey done post war. Matt is selling his HERE.

I have a couple Kikumitsu on file, but this one seems a bit different. Is it something else?

Right. According to Richard Fuller "Swordsmiths came under the control of the Army Blade Department around late 1941 or early 1942." Prior to this the only stamps we see on blades were the Showa and large Seki. After the Army took over, the stamping was mostly moved to the arsenals, so we see Na, small Seki (also a Nagoya stamp), Saka, Ko, Yama, Nan, To, Matsu, and a variety of prefecture stamps appear. The Na stamp is seen from 1941-1944, with the massive majority of them in 1943.

Yes. Although, Thomas & Trystan thought the kanji strokes were slightly different enough to raise question. However, we are starting to think the mark is for the Inaba Forge, like the "Ka" on other blades may be for Kamakura - so location stamps. We talked of these in several posts, but here's the one where we have summarized the 4 we have on Toyokawa blades:

Good eye, Mal, thanks!

Yes it is, John, thanks for the link! And you're probably right on that price. Before COVID you couldn't tough a kaigunto for less than $2,400. Now, they seem to be going for less than $2,000. The seller is way high for today's market.

That's a steal of a price for the Dawson book, Steve! I'd jump on that. I agree with John, Russ. Plimpton's book is bigger and has some examples of swords not seen in any other reference, so useful for that. But it shows no blades at all, and like John said, the history discussions in Dawson are more in-depth than in Plimpton. I'm glad I have both, but if I had to choose 1 I'd go with Dawson first.

Thanks Max. The sword is a Type 98 Japanese officer sword. You can read about them here: Military Swords of Imperial Japan (Guntō) (ohmura-study.net) The all brown tassel is a discussion all of it's own. Both Dawson and Fuller listed them as "late war" army tassels, but more recently, an August 1940 WWII uniform regulation change was found specifying the all brown tassel to be used by the Gunzoku - the civil branch of the military. Previously, Gunzoku used standard officer tassels, but the uniform reg change specified they use the brown tassel to reduce confusion. Gunzoku wore military uniforms that, at a casual glance, could be mistaken for active duty officers. I believe it was their rank patches (working from memory here, so could be wrong) that were specific to Gunzoku, so the added tassel would help separate them. You can read about this on Nick Komiya's thread Regulation for Civilian Employees carrying Swords. The earliest year observed, so far, for the all brown tassel is August 1940, and I have 2 on 1942 gunto, so this appears to support Nick's claim the tassel was made for Gunzoku, as opposed to an already established "late war" tassel for active army officers simply being reassigned to Gunzoku. Besides, August 1940 isn't really all that "late" for WWII.

Thanks Peter! I'm going to file this in the Naotane files, with a note that it may be gimei. Brian doesn't believe it's legit, and the brown color on the nakago looks like a liquid coating was applied, maybe to fake age/patina? Yet, if faked, the fakers knew of Naotane's practice of hot stamping city names. That's certainly possible as the Japanese fakers would have to know their smiths if they are going to be good at it. Yet it seems a tad bit more than you expect in modern gimei producers. So, I'll file this one with a caveat.

Bryce, any chance of a date on that blade?

Good one, John! Does "onkahsi-to" mean Imperial gift sword?

OVERLOAD OVERLOAD OVERLOAD…,

It's just a shame that we can't just have a Gassan discussion, or Happy New Year greeting, or talks about ducks - without someone's Trump Derangement Syndrome leaking out all over our enjoyable discussions. It IS pretty sad.

I'm not saying this mei is legit, but having just learned that Naotane made kokuin for city names where he made a sword in his travels, could this be a city or province name? Anyone able to make anything of this?

Thanks Barry and Peter! Man, if he hadn't explained it, I never would have made out that name.

Sincerely wish the same to you Steven. Really. But you are way out of line with: If you want to join me in the Boxing Ring Thread I would be happy to do a fact-check on that claim with you. But not here. Ditto with this statement. True but coming from just the opposite people you are implying. But again - Boxing Ring material. Happy New you fellow Sword Collector.

Not artsie, but worth listing for future reference. Two habaki with "Imperial Gift", both on Yasukuni-to. This one on a Yasuhiro, posted by @Simon R HERE. And this one on a Yasunori, linked to by @oli HERE.

Oh boy! That’s new to me! Going to have to add a section to the Stamps doc. Posting the photo in case someone can assist in the city name:

Look for stamps, or discussions of stamping!

I’ve never read any source that knows. It’s like the question about why they used Anglo numbering on fittings instead of Japanese most of the time. Speculation is that they just continued from the imported contractors. However, there is some Anglo writing on swords, even from the 1800s during the big tourist time.

@MaxMorelli Max, Is that tassel all brown, or is it a faded 2-tone? Also, I have 2 other Yoshimune on file with stamps - 1 with Gifu, 1 with small Seki.

Date correction: Showa 17, so 1942.

I'm posting this here to avoid hijacking Bruno's thread on Gunsui-to, but the original post is HERE, with link to the original site where it was found. So, this image is found on a gunsui-to. No one has offered an ID or meaning of it yet. While looking through Dawson's book on early Type 8's and their markings, I found this and thought it was the same thing. But, the Clement & Jung symbol has 8 rays, whereas this one only has 6. Might lend some credence, though, to the idea that this may actually represent something, as Dawson suggests, like a sun or cannonball burst.