Bruce Pennington

Someday I'll start a seperate "Gold Painted Gunto" thread, but for now, this one is acting as a general place to discuss colors and their originality. So I came across another gold-painted saya on a Type 98 on This Wehrmacht-Awards Thread. I've asked for some close-ups to investigate it further:

You have 2 screws to remove from the tsuka (handle). Then it will come off. If it resists, don't worry, you won't harm anything to force it off (as long as you have both screws removed!). All the rest of the parts look original. Once you get the screws out, give us photos of them. They might be original too, though unusual to have 2. Normally it is 1 screw near the tsuba (handguard) and a bamboo peg (mekugi) at the top end. You can read about the development and history of this Contingency model or Rinji-seishiki, like Trystan said. There are many names you will find collectors using like "Type 3", "late-war", "Marine" or "Navy Landing" sword. But none of them are legit IJA names. Reading List: Unveiling Rinjiseishiki Sword Legally Rebutting existance Type 3 Army Officer Sword True Significance of Type 3 Officer Sword

Here's a pinned kabutogane on a gunto owned by Volker, posted HERE.

Volker, great gunto! Is that a mon on the fuchi? Also, this one has the kabutogane we've discussed with the holes (missing pins?). You can see something in one of the holes, which makes me wonder if the head is broken off. Discussed on this thread: Pinned Kabutogane on Type 94

Ok. Really a nice touch though, I like the whole rig.

Gorgeous Matthew. Any idea if the tassel is original to the gunto?

Hm. Kind of undercuts the whole "fitter markings" idea. A later re-fit might explain the lack of numbers on fittings. I'm also starting to wonder about the post-war inspection teams that had put some annotations on swords as they looked for National treasure art swords. There might be more explanations for the painted numbers than we are aware of. Thanks Kenneth!

Thanks for the insight Thomas! I was starting to wonder if this was a practice of the Tokyo 1st Arsenal. This may back up my idea. Quite a small sample still, but so far, it looks like the kana might have stopped in 1945 with just numbers in use that year. In general, many of the stamps stopped after 1944 with only Gifu and Seki (small Nagoya inspector stamp) active in '45.

Yes, that Akita number was the largest I've seen so far. As to a same katakana being used in more than one prefecture - that's a little complicated. The only repeat katakana is "イ" , but it's on the mune of a Fukuoka Nagamitsu and on the fittings of Niigata Akimitsu & Munetoshi. All the katakana on the nakago ends, mei side, are specific to prefectures and aren't used elsewhere. So I'm not convinced the イis the same as the others, meaning, I think it was put there by fitters, while the mei-side kana, in my view, are put there by Army inspectors. Katakana with numbers.docx

Could you give us more pictures of the fittings? Including the tsuba? This seems to be one of those intentionally darkened or blackened gunto.

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?