Bruce Pennington

Great one Trystan! That's now the 3rd earliest numbered blade on file (not counting the kyugunto) I have the one from Slough already. Thomas, yes, I put it in the chart.

The '8' is likely part of the assembly team process. Are there any '8's stamped on the fittings? The large Seki stamp is likely the inspection mark of the Seki Cutlery Manufactures Assoc. This stamp is seen on blades made from 1940-1945, but the massive majority of the dated ones were in 1942. So, odds are for this year with yours, but that just the odds. These tend to be found on some good looking blades. Don't know if your budget would allow for a polish, as they will run over $2,000. But if you have it to spend, I bet it would be a gorgeous blade afterward.

I got a bad one in a bunch of 4 bought at auction, a while back. in the pics, it looked good, late-war, but in hand it was too light and the leather was very thin, cracking all over. Crappy wood underneath. Crappy, thin blade, bad nakago. Sold it off in parts, with full disclosure. Later came to find out the ugly stamp on the nakago put it in the camp of likely island-made swords! Wish I hadn't rushed to judgement on it now.

Another bamboo leaf pattern posted by @Stewart HERE.

Oh man! That is a gorgeous blade. Glad it worked out!

Yes, got it off the Russian Guns.ru site. Thanks guys! I'll re-label it. Appreciate the help!

Guys, I have this one filed as "Kanesumi" but after looking at some others, I think the second kanji is something else. What do you see? Looks more like a "義" 'yoshi' to me.

Slough's page on this smith used "kanesumi". Is there a preferred, or better, English spelling of the 2? Doesn't matter to me, but I'd like to standardize my files, thanks! As an aside - I realized that we have the habit of making plurals, spelled with 's', sounds like a 'z' when we say them. "Guns" is one of many examples. I don't really say "guns", it's more like "gunz" when I say it. But back to the question at hand, I'd really like to spell it the way it ought to be, if that is definable.

Thanks Duncan! Yes, a bamboo pattern tsuba made for Gunzoku, the civilian branch of the Army. Ohmura mentions them on his site HERE. You'll notice his examples used civil tsuka, but most of the time, we see military fittings on them. Your company grade tassel, blue/brown, adds to the confusion of the whole Gunzuko issue. It is Nick Komiya's arguement that they were to use the all brown tassel (found in a uniform reg revision). But as we all know, not everyone followed the regs to the letter and many variations in practice are seen. I used acetone to remove the gold paint from my NCO blade. Didn't have any affect on the steel that I'm aware of. Others may have some other methods.

Had a similar problem shipping USPS from US to Australia. Neither country has restrictions. Found out that USPS, for international shipping, uses space in whichever carrier is available at that moment. In both cases, the carrier was Emirates. They won't ship kitchen knives, much less swords. Both swords were returned to me - no refund. Had another problem going East to the EU. Did fine until it hit London, and British Air refused it. Again, returned - no refund. In all 3 cases, I reverted to FedEx with no difficulties.

It’s quite a beauty, actually! I wish I had this one instead of the one I bought years ago.

Welcome, Duncan! I had an NCO with the blade painted gold! Very odd to see a black one. Can I get a full photo of the tsuba? Looks to be one of the civil Gunzuko styled tsuba. Also a shot of the other side of the nakago, which I assume doesn't have a date on it?

Here are pics of the blade At best, it is a post-war souvenir, made as a souvenir. At worst it is a Chinese fake. It doesn't have the telltale Damascus steel of modern fakes, yet the steel work is poor. The dimpling on the kabutogane and fuchi are better than your standard fakes, but if made in Japan, the fittings are REALLY poor quality. The saya throat opening is typical for a fake, as is the really poor saya liners. The fakes are usually rough, and not smooth like a real saya liner. On the other hand, the fakes almost never get a couple of details 1. These little 'ears' for lack of a term, have a gap in them that the fakers never get right, yet this one has the gaps 2. Legit tsuba have 4 little 'swish' marks at the top and bottom that the fakers always miss, but this one has them, although they are chiseled in, rather than cast in: However, the tsuba overall is extremely crude and typical for the fakes. I agree, the tsuka appears to have been recently poorly wrapped and the ito was painted white. You can see where the paint overlapped onto the edge of the fuchi. If it is a fake, the fakers did a little more homework than normal. The question comes in, of course - could it be island made? But my same issues hold, as island made swords don't usually have the added details I've highlighted.

Very cool! Definitely supports the broader use of the slogan.

Wow Dave! What a very interesting idea, and certainly a possibility! Which, Grev, would makes this a more interesting piece for sale purposes. I know, I know, there are sellers who hype all sorts of fanciful stories sometimes, but as a 'possible explanation, just theory' I wouldn't mind presenting the idea.

Fabulous! Thanks guys, Trystan, Thomas, and Mal. I think this one will have to get a bit larger section in the Stamps doc, if you don’t mind me quoting your article, Mal.

John, Mal removed the article to fix a couple errors. I suspect he'll re-post soon. Ah, found it! But Mal said "Ryūōshi (龍王子)" Does the "shi" add something?

@mecox Mal, love your latest missive on the Ehime smiths! But you sure make a lot of work for me!!! Ha!, good kind of work, though. The photos of Sadatsugu are a new category where a smith has both a kao (kakihan) and a hotstamp (kokuin)! Dang! Have you any insight to the kanji in the hotstamp? These often are kanji from the smith's name, but in this case, it doesn't seem to be close to anything in his name. I have a 1938 one of his with the same kao, stamp, and a Buddhist bonji from Slough, pg 154. Could it be something religious oriented? He said it says "Ryu O".

Gorgeous! Are you able to display them like that?

Grev, Since it sounds like everything fits, I'd lean toward the "custom job during the war" theory. Maybe his original saya was damaged, maybe he was one of those head-strong individualists. They did, in fact, exist, even though that is hard to imagine in our limited view of WWII Japan. Richard Fuller, in his book of admirals and generals, stated that many of them were head-strong, non-conformists (not the words he used, but don't recall his exactly).

So to summarize: We now have a quote from a 1940 Japanese magazine article that clearly states that the Seki Cutlery Manufacturers Association was using the Showa stamp! (sigh) my Stamps doc 8.7 already needs updating! But that's a good problem to have, as we now know for a fact that SCMA was using the Showa stamp! Up to now, we really couldn't prove that, and it could have been some sort of Army acceptance stamp. Nice find, Thomas! You have personally been a National Treasure to our growing collective knowledge of the Japanese gunto. We still have a seeming conflict concerning the use of the Showa and Seki stamps. Ohmura sites a 1939 inventory of SCMA stamped blades that notes that the numbers don't include traditionally made blades "as they were not inspected"; while the Seki City website history claims that "all Japanese swords were inspected."

Working fast and normal now!

Dang. What an interesting piece! The dirt/grime, plus the broken leather retention strap look wartime legit to me. Interested to see the saya too. I would bet a months fun money that this NCO had an heirloom tsuba and re-fitted his 95 with the tsuba and saya to carry it into the war. Love the sakura. Unless the tsuba guys say it is a WWII piece of work. Then I have no idea what transpired with this gunto. So far, though, looks period done. Price will depend on who's buying. Some guys like the odd-ball unique items with history. Someone looking for a mil-spec 95, likely won't even want to buy.

FYI Brian - site has been vvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrrryyyyyyyy slllllllloooooowwwwwwww tttttttooooooo lllllllloooooooaaaaaadddddd yesterday (7:30pm Mountain time USA) to this morning (7am MST). Extremely slow to initially enter the site. Then sometimes slow, sometimes normal once in, but picture loading still slow. I clicked on 'messages' and it took a really long time to open up, but adding a comment went normally.

That’s a good blade tip for the Nagoya Arsenal. Just wanted to confirm it. I haven’t been following the market, but that sounds like a normal price for me. You should obviously offer him a couple hundred less and see if he takes it.