Bruce Pennington

Trytan, Is that the swordsmith's name? If so, I don't see it on the Seki tosho list.

Seconding Brandon! I've read many arguments on both sides, but personally lean toward "late-war officer". In light of Nick Komiya's revelation of the military orders that great loosened the mil specs on swords and guns in the last months of the war, this gunto is like the Japanese version of the Chinese-made Emergency Late War Gunto. The IJA had already allowed officers to rent/buy Type 95s early in the war. Not it's late in the war, suppliers being bombed, etc, why not go back to the 95 makers and have them crank out some more officer gunto. But that's still just speculation on my part.

Just to reinforce Hamish's answer. Trystan (@BANGBANGSAN) brought this Chinese factory to our attention. Gimei From China. He's posted other pictures in other threads where you see the actual area of the factory a bit. So, we have the Chinese faking Mantetsu now, plus I believe there is at least one guy in Japan taking mumei (unsigned) nihonto and faking Mantetsu mei on them to take a $1,000-2,000 sword and turn it into a $6,000 sword. US prices on Mantetsu aren't quite that high, more in the $3,000 range, but that's what's going on. I posted this here in hopes go gathering as many perspectives as possible to weigh the evidence. Most of you guys have way more experience at seeing the reality of a blade than I do. I appreciate your gut feel on this!

SO! Thanks to Kelly (Japan auctions), we got word from the seller of the latest, Spring '42, Takanobu blade, that there IS NO serial number! Argggggh. The first one we found, Winter '42, has a serial number that is appropriate for the 1942 year, but the mei is ugly for a Mantetsu (which could be explained by the idea that Takanobu, himself, cut the mei). This latest one has perfect, beautiful Mantetsu styled mei, but no serial number! And both have wavy hamon, not the standard suguha, but you would expect that in a custom blade made by a big-shot in the company that doesn't normally smith blades. Hrumph! The first one, linked above by Thomas, was posted in 2009, quite a few years before we started seeing suspect Mantetsu blades coming out of Japan. So, to me, the evidence tilts toward legit. This second one comes out in the gimei Mantetsu age, with great mei, but no serial number. So, it could be a fake, and the forger missed the detail about the serial number. I just don't picture a gimei forger knowing the Mantetsu operation well enough to say "Gee, let me pick an obscure, almost unknown engineer in SMR to the collecting world, to create a faked custom blade".

Like what Hamish? Don't know if this helps at all:

Saw this for sale. Quite gorgeous, but out of my price-range, if anyone is interested. For Sale HERE.

Someone thought the Nihonto guys would be a good place to get some opinions on this hamon. It's on a Mantetsu, so not nihonto, but the blade is attributed to Takanobu, who was the engineer in charge of over-all blade production for the SMR factory. This is only the 2nd blade I've seen with his attribution on it (Takanobu quenched this), so if not gimei, it's a rare one (I don't own this, BTW, it's for sale on Buyee/Yahoo). JP thought it struck him as Seki style hamon, which if true could help support the gimei idea, but it could simply mean that Takanobu got trained by a Seki smith. Any thoughts?

Another. LINK

A picture from Chris (Vajo, not his gunto). LINK

One of Neil's. LINK

Adding to the collection. LINK

Ha! Good catch, didn't spot that! Yeah, the whole thing looks like it was Bubba'd up. Some of these gunto arrive in pretty bad shape. The handy-man in us makes us want to fix it. I suspect this one was one of those.

Tortoise shell and god dedication: "The writing on the side of the blade reads "Hachiman no Kami" which translates to "Hachiman the Lord (god)". Hachiman is the deity of archery and warfare."

Dave, that ito reminds me of a Rinji I just saw. It was almost colorless, tan, and quite course. Here's a picture. The seller said the fuchi was a reproduction replacement but claimed the rest was original.

Dave's example is the kind Paul is referring to. It's what I'm used to seeing also. An option on this one is that as 1945-made blades (I assume), there were likely many unused ones at factories and even a warehouse or 2. The gunto I started this thread with could be something thrown together by the locals at war's end and sold as "souvenirs" to occupying G.I.s. A similar thought as the souvenir Army/Navy gunto produced by Tenshozan for the US Army PX. So, the blade may have been made for the war, but the koshirae is cheap tourist stuff. A possibility.

Interesting. The chuso and fuchi are quite similar.Even the course ito material.

All we know about Takanobu is that he was the engineer managing the Mantetsu blade production for SMR. Of course this doesn't preclude him from traveling, and working with a smith in Seki to try his hand at some of the craft, but it's simply not known. Yes, oddly, the winter blade mei is the worst I've ever seen on a Mantetsu, while this Spring 1942 mei looks good. The serial number on the W42 is ヤ 246, which is the correct katakana for the year, but the "winter" stands out because all the other "YA" numbers are "Autumn." I got an email back from Buyee, and they simply said "Oh sorry, we see you're not eligible to buy this item. See ya!" and didn't answer my question! Grrrr. I'll try again with more explanation.

We have another Mantetsu with the same inscription by Takanobu. It's a Spring '42, where this new one is Winter '42. The mei cutting is different on each, but that could be due to different mei cutters (word for that?). Both have the wavy hamon:

I requested a photo of the nakago mune. Buyee says they'll forward the request and get back with me. I won't be surprised to find a blade that was a special order. We have seen presentation Mantetsu, and tachi Mantetsu. But we haven't seen a convincing blade with such a hamon yet. Hopefully we'll get a reply on the serial number request. I'd still like to hear what the added comment is under the date.

Posting pics for posterity. Can anyone translate the kanji under the date?

The last version of the type 95 was pretty ugly too. It was Japanese made, so still “prettier”, But these weren’t even Japanese made.

If you want to buy it, you can ship it to me as the delivery location, then I will ship it to you. I’ve done that for other guys in Australia.

The discussion seems to have gotten mixed. Storage versus display. But the owner said he plans to do both, with his real question being “do I display in original fittings or in shirasaya?” From all the answers, it seems that his answer should be to display as proposed- in shirasaya with original fittings fitted with tsunagi (sp?). I live in Colorado, with very low humidity. So I don’t feel concerned about displaying bare blades.

That’s it, thanks! 濃州住栗木兼正勤作　Nōshū-jū Kuriki Kanemasa kinsaku.

Do you still have this? If so, can you check the back edge of the nakago for a serial number?