Bruce Pennington

Chris, you are right about the hamon, but you'll notice in the article that they were making them "for self protection," so they weren't concerned about the art. They were simply making weapons.

Two great threads posted by Guy at Warrelics on: Theater-made Gunto - The gunto repair team did not have their own swords, so they made blades from auto springs! and Naruse Kanji -- Shuriken, Swordsmanship .... and Sword Repair - a brief bio of one of the repair team members.

I have heard that often, but don't know a source for it.

Yes, a very nice Type 98 Japanese officer gunto!

Rather than start a new thread, I'm going to tack this on this one. NCO tassels on Type 98 gunto and blades (both WWII and older) mounted in leather-covered saya and Type 98 tsuka/tsuba. I have found 4 on a quick NMB search. Adam's (Babu) recent one got me wondering. The majority of them have what appears to be used/abused NCO tassels, often the knot missing and the ends tied off. In some cases, the entire gunto looks equally beat up, like it saw plenty of time in the field. I want to propose the idea for discussion that these are NCO gunto, carried under the 1945 Army authorization for NCO carry of family swords. My idea is that when an NCO showed up at a shop with a family blade to be re-fitted, the shop used Type 98 tsuka/tsuba as they wouldn't have had access to aluminum tsuka. Another angle is the Warrant Officer. I found a 2015 post of a sword - Taken at Kabwet, Burma - where a museum had a fully fitted Type 98, company grade tassel, that was being carried by a captured Warrant Officer. Now, I find it more likely that a Warrant Officer would carry this, than a Type 98 with NCO tassel, but what if the guy came up through the enlisted ranks and became a warrant officer, upgrading his sword to an officer sword, but retaining his NCO tassel, like our "Mustang" officers today, wear their ribbons on their officer shirts (officers don't wear the ribbons on shirts. We're talking A.F.) I'll post this on the Warrelics forum too, to get blasted by the experts there, but I'm getting the feeling from some of these that the tassels are wartime, not G.I. add-ons or post-war add-ons. What say you?

OLD POST! Interesting provenance. I'd say the answer is that the soldier was a Warrant Officer. I'm no expert in Japanese rank structure, but I would think he would be allowed to carry the officer gunto, company grade tassel. There was no tassel for Warrant Officers.

The lighter, top one is clearly a fake. The darker, bottom one is tough. The snaps look old, but the top end of the leather, especially inside the flap, look new, but the end looks artificially aged, with multiple cracks running all over. I have a fake that came with a batch of swords, and the saya leather has that all-over-cracking like it was treated with a chemical or something. I could be wrong on the bottom one, though.

Adam, After looking at the rest of the pics, one shows the blade in a very old tsuka. Which one came with the blade, the WWII army or the civil?

Adam You've got an old blade re-fitted for the war in army fittings. The tsuka/tsuba are Type 98 Army officer with the leather covering what is likely the original saya. Puzzling is the worse-for-wear NCO tassel. I've seen a number of these lately and don't know what to think. The easy answer is G.I. grabs any tassel he can find and puts it on his war trophy before going home; or post-war collector did it. But what post war collector would put just the leather strap missing the knot at the end. This looks war-era to me. Ignoring the tassel, that's what you've got.

LIke Chris said, looks to me like it's one of those blades that was cut in half at the end of the war. There are a few around like this. Last one I saw was used to hold a koshirae set together. Ha Ha! I just realized the humor of the title!!!

Ha! Should have known! Thanks Steve!

I didn't notice the leather till you just pointed that out. I think you summarized it well. This is my leaning too. Richard Fuller speculates that naval forces stationed on land working with Army may have adopted some of the army fittings. He mentioned durability, but I think the gold-gilding might have been undesirable if trying to blend in with the local flora. I believe there is also that element of being essentially abandoned on islands with no reinforcement, no resupply, and in the case of swords, no repair teams or access to the industry. Field repairs and replacements would, to me, be a natural thing to do. But at this point, we are WAY off the main road and deep into Speculation County.

Uwe, I would have said Asano, too. Is this Samurai Mon site incorrect? Samurai Family Crests

Ahem.... how do I keep getting YOUR projects!?!?! Ha! Well, it's a pretty small sampling, but so far it looks like they are all over the place. Chris and Neil both have a Yoshitada: Chris - 62.5 & Neil - 69.0 with the Mil spec at 66.6. Yours, George is short compared to the rest (Chris' is the only shorter), while the rest are longer than the spec. I didn't look the gendaito over, but I suspect the same from them. Interesting hypothesis, about the gendaito being longer, but I'm feeling like it was simply because of your sample-size of 2. I'll say, though, that even if wrong, you still broadened our understanding of gunto by your probing question and that's always a good thing!

Michael, you have one heck of a collection there! That's a really cool blade! The fittings, though, are a real mess. I don't know what to think. The tsuka is mostly Army, but it has navy menugi. The blue ito looks like it has period wear, so it doesn't seem to be a post-war re-wrap. The Showa stamp is normally only seen on army blades. It has 2 mekugi ana, which means the blade was re-mounted at some point in it's life, which opens the possibility that this was re-fitted with the navy tsuba/seppa and menugi. The saya was originally covered in leather, which was seen in both army and navy combat saya. The only difference was the navy leather was died darker, sometimes black, whereas the army kept the leather brown. I guess you don't know the story behind this gunto? (Ha, I see John was typing the same time I was! Sorry for the duplication!)

Type 98s in good shape sell in the range of $900-1,400 USD. Yours is weathered and used, which will or won't affect the pricing depending upon the collector buying. Some guys look for the pristine, and some love to see the battle-worn. So just depends on who's buying. I agree with Chris on the age - it could be 1930's or earlier. Not likely much earlier than 1800s - or it could be WWII era.

Kyle, Is the saya the standard 98 or is it leather-covered wood saya? Is the blade an older blade or WWII showato? I ask because I've seen quite a mix of parts on older blades that were re-fitted for the war. If it's showato and all standard fittings, I'd say that there is a small variety of chuso buttons. But like Chris was alluding to, if it is short, then either it's a replacement or seppa have been added since made.

Thanks John, PM sent!

Neil, Thanks! Can you tell us which ones of those are in the light-tan, standard fittings? They all seem longer than George's theory of the 62cm for standard blades.

Yes, but I was talking about the byline, the line under your name. Now it says “Gendaito - Swords of the Rikugun Jumei Tosho”. Isn’t that new? I believe it used to say something about “collecting Type 3”. If not, then there is someone else that I am thinking of.

I remember that one being discussed a while back. Those are birds flying off to the right, I believe!

I might be thinking of you, Chris. Did your byline used to say something like "Collecting Type 3"? Seems like there is one other guy doing it too, though.

Michael, Could we get the nagasa measurement on this blade? George Trotter is doing a study on the length of RS blades. Thanks!

George, There is a guy on NMB who has in his by-line that he collects Type 3 gunto, but I can't remember who that is. If we could stir him up, he could probably give us some good data.

Yes, the larger one. Thanks!