Bruce Pennington

From Sesko's book: "ICHINONJI (一文字), Shōwa (昭和, 1926-1989), Gifu – “Ichimonji” (一文字), real name Endō Masayuki (遠藤公之), born October 23rd 1890, he worked as a guntō smith"

Thanks Stephen! Couldn't believe there was a smith with that name! Found him in Sesko's list though. I assume no date? The stamps put the blade in the '41-'44 range, with the likeliest date of '43.

Thanks Michael. Looked like a modern update to the boar's eye theme. Good luck, if you sell.

Maybe a typo, but it would be a Type 98 officer gunto. The Type 95 is the issued NCO gunto with serial numbers on the blade. Your 1939 is at the early years for the Showa stamp. Out of 46 dated blades with the stamp in my survey, only 6 are in '39. Most are in '40-'41.

I found some online vague references to a pig-dragon. There is a goat-dragon, but it has goat horns. Maybe someone more versed in Japanese mythology can help us!

Thanks Chris, quite a variety! The first turtle I've seen! And I particularly like the unique rain-pattern style, actually shows depth to the streaks of rain.

That's a quality piece, K.! Was it made with the shirasaya?

Here's an odd-ball for even the souvenir sword. Found on this Guns.ru thread. Over there, they immediately labeled it as a Chinese fake. I immediately labeled it as a post-war souvenir. But I am bothered by a few things. 1. The nakago is poor. No yasurime. Painted numbers, except for the first one, look like jibberish. Ana at end looks recently drilled. 2. There is actual same' and ito isn't the normal icky pale green found on souvenirs. 3. The army metal fittings aren't gilded. 4. Too many seppa for a souvenir, and the fuchi isn't the 1-piece fuchi/seppa. 5. The hamon looks fake. Could the Chinese fakers actually be faking the post-war souvenir??? Or, is it just a Chinese blade put into souvenir fittings? Or is it just an odd-ball? I have seen slight variations in them, albeit rare.

Paul, Your photo is listed as a ".pg" and I can't open it. Any chance of uploading a ".jpg"?

Thanks for sharing, Erwin, nice presentation and gorgeous gunto! And another example of that unknown shop logo:

That's a good lookin' Type 98 Linda!

@Wakal - Alex, any stamps above or below this signature? How about marks on the back edge of the nakago (tang)?

For the record, Mantetsu translation and discussion here:

You can read about much of it in the article Thomas liked above, but most of that is described in word form. I'll look the survey over and see if I can post some interesting charted tidbits.

John! You just made my day!!! Those fittings are rare. Out of 280 SMR Mantetsu I have on file, only 10, now 11, are in those fittings. We believe they were being made by the Mantetsu factory, as no other smith's blades have been found in them. You can read more about these on Niel's @IJASWORDS thread - Manchurian Rinji Seishiki Sword Along with the serial number on the mune (back edge of the tang), can you look closely near the top, close to the tsuba (handguard), maybe even under it, for a small stamp?

And another Kanemitsu with the same 3 dots as the first one. Posted by @Lareon HERE.

Interesting. Tim Blackbourne's Kanemitsu has the same:

And that means it was stamped prior to fitting. If the fitting shop put those numbers there it would be illogical that they would put a hole right through they’re own fitting numbers. I think these are army numbers. Or contract numbers.

Found here: Gunboards Thread

Would love to see a photo or 2 of the whole gunto (sword and fittings).

"Mino" was a Japanese prefecture, part of southern Gifu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mino_Province He was Ozawa Kanehisa: "KANEHISA (兼久), Shōwa (昭和, 1926-1989), Gifu – “Kanehisa” (兼久), real name Ōsawa Kan´ichi (大沢勘一), born January 2nd 1915, student of Kojima Kanemichi (小島兼道), he worked as a guntō smith and died July 7th 1945, ryōkō no retsu (Akihide)" [from Marcus Sesko's book] The large Seki stamp at the top is an inspection stamp of the Seki Cutlery Manufacturers Assoc., who inspected blades to weed out poor quality showato. Generally speaking, the blades I've seen with the stamp are really nice quality blades.

Interesting to note the poor quality screws. @hi-revr - Eric, are there any threads on that bottom one? It seems to have a slotted head, like a screw, but there don't appear to be threads. It looks more like a metal peg.

An interesting development concerning the "Kobuse" or wrapped steel stamp - I have 4 on file now, and all 4 are undated, Showa-stamped Kaneshige blades! They are sourced from: BenVK, Slough, Japaneseswordindex, and 1 undocumented. If anyone has a blade with this stamp, especially if it was made by a different smith, please post. I should add that none of the Kaneshige have the added "Shingani Iri" or "Genuine Core Steel" stamp like this one: Sadly, I didn't document the smith name on this one. If anyone can tell me the name I would appreciate it!

Agree. Yet, you'll notice it does have the double release buttons. So, a mid-range quality fittings. Also, @Kiipu, a 3rd Kanemitsu with horizontally stamped numbers. I have: 1944 "24" 1944, Mar "118" NoDate "247" All three horizontally stamped and all 3 RS blades. 118 is from Slough, so no fittings shown, just he double ana. 24 is owned by Tim Blackbourne and is in identical fittings: