Bruce Pennington

They all look too shiny. I suppose Generals' dress swords saw a pretty pampered life, but still .... Without your comments, I wouldn't have suspected anything, though. I have don't have enough experience with these to see what you can see.

So, for the rookies - 1945

James, that's fabulous, thanks! Boy the Seki stamp on both these really busted me for a few minutes until I could see what they were. Both are stamped side-ways, and roughly struck. Both are Gifu & Seki plus Gifu on the mune. Can I get mei and date pics for the Kanetsuga? Also, the Nobumitsu has 2 mekugi ana ... so Rinji fittings? How about the Kanetsuga? Again, thanks for the help!

I would be interested to hear from people that on these concerning that question too. I have one that I thought was a Chinese fake, but after reading this it might be what you were talking about. I don’t have it in hand right now, but when I can get to it I will take some photographs and post it.

He doesn't say. All these began in the late 1800s with Japan's move to western styled weapons. Nick Komiya, at warrelics, has discussed some army models that were revised in 1914, but I haven't seen a rundown on dates for police swords and dirks.

The belt loop (haikan) is missing, but for that, identical to the example in Fuller & Gregory, page 191. Police dirk, speculating that it is for a Sergeant, due to lack of floral design on backstrap.

So, it sounds like the same manufacturing operation, changing names as it changes hands? In any case, my pursuit of the OP stamp is still unresolved. As of now, I like my comparison of the Toyokawa stamp being different on blades than it is on fittings.

Stegel shared these other variations of the Mukden stamp on THIS WARRELICS POST. So, these stamps aren't the same, but it makes a point that they did have a small variety of stamps they went through. I'm reminded of the Toyokawa anchor that is in a circle on sword blades but in a sakura on dirks and other fittings. Maybe Mukden used a differing look on sword blades than they did on guns.

Great collection Dave! I have to call a "Foul" on you, though, if you don't know the meaning of the "K" in the star in the circle!!!

Shoot! I see that now. Who was it that is in Samoa? Or is it you that was from Samoa?

I hope you're located centrally on the island, otherwise you risk tipping the island over soon! Love the collection!!!

Another two found by Thomas, posted by Stegel ON WARRELICS., though we just have the stamps, so we don't know what the fittings looked like.

BINGO! Now we have 2 of them, and this one is on an "Emergency" blade, which validates it.

Do you have no fittings for it? The ones that I have seen in the past were navy dirks. here is the page about it on Omura’s site: http://ohmura-study.net/741.html

Unfortunately, most of my files photos are only nakago pics. Of the several where I started keeping fittings, too, I haven't seen a mon (though I haven't gotten through them all yet). Technically a mon, though not a kamon (family name), the tachi presentation swords have the SMR mon on them.

Wow, what a question Peter! I love it! I should probably grind it around my mental gears a couple of days before answering, but I don't have anything else to do right now. One thing I like about how you've posed it is you've put the fake in our hands. It's not on ebay, or in a museum, therefore out of our control, but it's actually in our possession. A "known" fake, what do I do with it!? I suppose I could use my own experience to start with. I bought what turned out to be a really bad fake Type 98, as a new collector looking for replacement parts for my Dad's Mantetsu. That was 6 years ago and I still have it. I'll never sell it because I don't want some other newbie to get screwed. If I sold it, I'd sell it with full disclosure, but I can't stop the buyer from turning it around, tripling his money and cheating a rookie with it. So, I'll never sell it. OTOH, if I ever were to sell it, it's not my responsibility to control how other people behave. It's my job to be honest. What happens after the fact is out of my hands, literally and figuratively, and not my responsibility. And I suppose that could be the path taken in the case of a gorgeous nihonto that is gimei. The blade deserves to be appreciated simply because of it's beauty, regardless of the mei. Someone on NMB once told of a Shogun that was given a gimei sword as a gift. Supposedly both he and the giver knew it was gimei, but it was appreciated because of the honor of receiving a gift. I have difficulty with this practice though, because it's starting to show up in the Mantetsu world. The gimei doubles, even triples the sale price. If I had one, I think I'd pay a polisher to file the nakago clean before resale! But that brings me to my final doubt - like the debate over the Death Penalty - destroying fakes runs the risk that once in a while, an item will inevitably turn out to be legit. Everyone was wrong, but once destroyed, the treasure is lost forever. So, I think I'm back to the beginning, and simply keeping the item forever. Thanks for the challenging question!

Oh, I didn’t see that metal under the leather. Thanks for pointing that out! So, disregard my point about the blade being old. It still could be, but the odds are, now, that it’s a war era blade. But it could be either, and seeing the Nakago is the only way to tell. I see prices around the $600 range for something like this. So if you got it for 3-400, you’re doing well.

My experience with him was concerning 2 Mantetsu blades that he was selling. Both had hamon and were signed, dated, and had serial numbers. But very unusual for Mantetsu blades. I was able to chat with him though email. He said, like stated above, that these were being sold on consignment. I suspect they were originally mumei gendaito, and a Japanese smith had recently add the mei.

It depends if you are a "fixer-uper" kind of guy, or just want a nice gunto for your collection. Dave can get you connected to some guys that can do the re-wrap. There are various places you can buy menugi for the tsuka (handle). Search this site for "cosmoline removal" and you'll get several discussion. All in all, a fairly do-able project, and you'll still come in under the price of an intact Type 98 on the market. The leather covered saya is the "combat saya" or "informal saya". Value varies with each collector, but they sell in the same price range as gunto with metal saya. Like John indicated, it could mean there's an old family blade inside. Family blades brought to the war were often re-fitted with the leather-covered saya. Need to get that mekugi (pin) out of the tsuka and take some pictures of the nakago (tang). It might be signed, it might be old.

Ah, that's the one with the black-painted tsuba! A good way to describe it. Clearly period work, not post-war pieced-together. A very good example of the stage the industry was in nearing the end of the war. YET, still better quality, attention to detail than many others we see. Maybe such detail indicates a shop that had avoided being bombed, and was still operating with their original casts/molds, whereas the ones we see with smooth metal parts, no detail, come from shops that were relocated and/or bombed out that had to start over.

Reading it now. Good history! From a sword perspective, It's interesting to see, in the few pictures with swords, how many of them are civil swords re-fitted in Navy combat saya. The same' is white, which I'm assuming was the original of the civil tsuka. Many of the photos seem to come from 1938, so the Type 97 might not have been "on the streets" yet. I can see why Fuller was tempted to say that the NLF troops were using Army tsuka on navy saya. Most shots are taken with the sailors' hands resting on the kabutogane, so it's not possible to tell if civil or Navy; but there is one shot where two tsuka are clearly seen. One is civil and the other has a military kabutogane, which as far as I can tell, is Navy.

Interesting Dave! From the fuchi and saya, it looks like a re-fitted civil sword, but probably quite late in the war. What is that same' made of? Are both the fuchi and kabutogane made of steel?

Sorry, but I just had to post this - does anyone see the Smiley face with the bamboo hat? Or is it just me? Ha!

Yes, that’s proper.