Bruce Pennington

Here are the 2 in comparison. I don't have the terms down, but the shape seems the same, but with a metal "neck". But I am way out of my league on this topic.

A new one (maybe litterally) on an edo blade posted by @Jwrussell HERE. Rising sun:

The tassel is from the pre-Type 94/98 days, or rather the kyu gunto days. Wonder if the owner intentionally kept his tassel and transferred it when he upgraded his sword to the new gunto. Of course this could simply be a post-war add-on.

Fortunately for all of us, we have this place to take our questions to. And fortunately for research, guys bring these blades to the forums. It is the primary source for my surveys. Guys like Richard Fuller, who had hundreds of blades to inspect in-hand, are really rare today. It is only because a guy has a question, or the occasional one that just wants to share his new acquisition with the group, that these items are available for searches. Who knows how many hundreds of blades are sitting in homes, with valuable information, that we will never see because the owner simply isn't curious or has no questions that need to be answered!

Also just found a Chikamitsu, Akita, No Date, ア778. Pics have been deleted (why do people do that???), but we have the text from Morita-san: Original post by @Edward G

Well @george trotter, PaulB just added a "ア" number, Kanyyoshi, Akita prefecture, ア837, on THIS THREAD.

And many thanks @paulb for adding another prefecture to the list of prefecture-specific katakana numbers! Suzaki Kaneyoshi of Akita prefecture. https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/KUN1880 The Japaneseswordindex.com lists him under: Suzuki Kuninori (aka Suzuki Kuniyoshi) Does that mean Kuniyoshi changed his art name to Kuninori or vice versa?

Thanks Thomas! First one I've seen on anything than Type 98/97. Pics added for ease of viewing:

That explains a lot! I had just assumed to stumbled across this at a swordshow or something. It's quite gorgeous!

Thanks Steve! And thanks again to Thomas. I've enjoyed this whole learning experience.

I love it! Nicely done.

Mei question - the mei on Stamp 1 seems to use a different kanji for the "hide". Am I missing something?

Ok, sounds like he might have had a set made (or made a set himself?) and the differences aren't intentional. I, at first, assumed the progression of the 5 had to do with the 3 generations. I've seen that in father/son kao where the son's kao came from the father's kao but was slightly modified. But that's not the case here it seems. . So, if I have this right, there were 3 generations of Masahide. The hotstamps were used by the first one. Amahide is simply another art name used by Masahide, which explains the same hotstamp on his blades. And finally, the Showa Amahide apprenticed from an apprentice from a Masahide. Which explains the almost identical hotstamp he used, with slight modification.

They might surprise you!

Thank you Thomas, those are excellent! Are each of the 5 from different Masahide? I eye-balled the various dates and they seem to be from different years, but without crawling through the Japaneseswordindex.com page to decipher, I don't know what they are telling me. Are they in sequential order by date?

Kaz, You're hitting the weekend, so response get slower until Monday traffic kicks in, but I'd still post this on the Translation Assistance thread. Those guys can sometimes work miracles.

Yes, I've since come to realize the blade of my original post wasn't fake after all, but one of these occupied-China-made blades, like Fuller proposed. I'm still quite skeptical of the fittings, though. The blade went to Stephen, so at least it's in good hands!

It predominantly is, but I've included a smattering of older stamps, when I find them, as it establishes the fact that stamping was not a Showa era phenomena but began much earlier. Smiths put marks/images/bonji/etc on blades for centuries but they had to be carved in, so it wasn't very common. The industrial age changed all that and so stamping exploded in use and numbers. I'd love to have the other versions of the Masahide stamps if you have them. And that goes for other unique stamps you might have.

Thanks Geoff. Yes, you're right on this one. Too bad. The buyer paid $1,100 for a sword that normally goes for $450. I've emailed the auction house on the one you mentioned being sold as "Navy" with another gunto.

Thanks Thomas, that's a good one. I'm thinking Darcy was onto something with his polisher idea. Let's see if we can chase it down. I have 3 smith mei that are stamped - Nobumitsu, Naohiro, and Masayuki - but all of them put the stamp up high, around the mekugi-ana, not down at the end of the nakago. Nobumitsu Naohiro Masayuki Adding the one in Thomas' reference for ease of viewing:

Darcy, can you explain this some more for me? Do you have photos of examples? I feel as you do that this might be a polisher mark rather than a smith mei.

Wow, Thomas, where have you been all my life! Ha! Sounds like I could use your input on the Stamps of the Japanese Sword document! Do you have examples of the other stamps Masahide used?

I see now, that paper uses 正秀 which would be MASA hide not 天秀 known as AMA hide The kanji on the blade doesn't seem to precisely fit either one, to me. When I first saw it, I was thinking "Masa" because of the bottom of it. Yet the hotstamp is the one seen on Amahide blades. I wonder if @mecox can add some enlightenment? Could the stamp be a forge logo like the one used by the Showa Amahide and seen on all the smiths that worked there? It hinges on whether Masahide worked with the Amahide of the 1800s. The Nihontoclub page shows Masahide working Active Period1781-1820.

Found this on an auction site. First time I've seen both a hotstamp (kokuin) and kao (kakihan) on a blade, but I'd like to confirm that the last character is, in fact, a kao rather than something else, please! If I have the date right, it's 1806.

Adding this Type 95 posted by Hamish on Type 95 NCO got an Upgrade thread