Bruce Pennington

Thanks guys for the input! And Brian, thanks for the info that the seller is a trusted member here. I don't doubt his integrity. Fleabay policy won't let me cancel my bid, so I'm not getting out of it. I seriously doubt, though, that I will win the bid as my offer is well under market value for a kai, much less a Minotogawa blade. As to the gunto - I'm overall fairly comfortable with the mei. I've seen enough variations in WWII stuff to not expect perfection. The are no terribly obvious flaws, just variation, to my eye (ok, very inexperienced eye!). And I've seen enough variation in kikusui mon - they were hand-cut, not stamped. I don't know enough about the Minotogawa operation. Were all smiths required to personally sign their blades? Or did they have (what's the word?) guy doing mei for them? Did they teach apprentices? And did those apprentices sign? If I win the bid, I'll have a better look in-hand. My collection is full of not-perfect pieces. I truly love the immaculate ones some of you guys have, but my collection tends to run on a more commoner-gunto path. The biggest bother, to me, is the weird seppa. But I've bought gold-painted gunto, so I've seen worse!

Here's a really poor picture off a websearch (don't know the source book) and the mei seems quite similar: Another similar: Slightly different:

Not defending this blade, but on the kikusui, we discovered quite a variation in the mon on this discussion: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/27750-minatogawa-shrine-swords/page-2?hl=kikusui, so I'm not bothered by the one on this blade. I am bothered by the seppa mon, though. Not only are the rivers flowing in the oposite direction, the mon are upside-down when holding the blade in-hand. I've asked for mei/gimei opinions on the Translation Assistance page. I put a bid down on it before I heard this talk and can't remove it. If you guys are right, hopefully someone will outbid me!

Guys, I've already put a bid on this, when I heard that it's likely gimei. What do you say? I have 6 days, but would like to find out as soon as possible. thanks for the help! ]

I’ve been blessed 2 times to actually meet a couple of our dear friends. Got to visit briefly with Kevin “Beater” in the south of England one day. The other was seeing Neil “IJASWORDS” as he came through the States. Can actually say the moments are more precious to me now than my swords! Traveling isn’t easy to come by, I know, but when able, I second Peter’s recommendation.

Well, the terms are getting confused. sunobe - single steel, no fold han-tan - multiple steel mix, no fold han-tanren- multiple (2) steels, folded. right?

It's a beauty! Haven't seen the seppa marked like that.

I'm still learning this whole business, but the way I read the def of "sunobe" is it is single steel, whereas the Han-tan is multiple steel mix. Right?

Yes, I'd love to have it too, but don't speak/read Japanese. I checked Amazon to see if it was available in eBook form, but not yet. At least with eBook, I could do some copy/paste into a translator.

Interesting example Dave! I wonder if the different colorations in the nakago reveal the mixed steels? The blade definitely doesn't look folded, which to my very-inexperienced eyes, would have said sunobe-to. But if guys with experienced eyes at seeing variations in blades/steels see the han-tan, then yours is a good example.

Dean, Most collectors call the saya a "combat saya." It's much lighter than the metal "formal" saya, and can take more knocking around.

Neil, Like collectors have many varied tastes, I'm sure you'll find just as much variation in taste in the WWII IJA officer. Steve's idea could very well explain it - he had enough money to buy good looking koshirae, but not enough for a great blade. So he looks good to all appearances. A slight variation is that he wanted to look good, but wanted a blade that he didn't mind putting into battle, a weapon, not an art-piece.

Even used the same pose:

So, am I understanding that the IJA guys that devised the system depicted on Nick's post, prefered that the romanji were ballanced rather than that they sounded accurate? They valued the symetry more than the phonetic accuracy?

It's not a Frankenstein - it's a Zombie!!! You can't kill it.

For those who never click on links, what Dave is pointing to is a document Nick uncovered showing the official IJA declaration of how to write (romanji) common Japanese kanji in "engish" sounds. There is no "tsu" or "shi", rather "tu" and "si". So the WWII IJA would have us pronounce tsuka and tsuba as "tuba" and "tuka". Koshirae would be "kosirae." etc. Does anyone know how they actually said these words in Japan in WWII? Nick links a wiki that expains the evolution of romaji systems: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese which helps us understand why there would be a difference of opinion at all on such pronounciations.

Yes, in fact one of the distictive problems faced during the war were really well made showato. It's the reason the govt started the stamping system. The site doesn't say. Maybe the provenance from the family actually said it when talking of the purchase for the family member? Otherwise, who could know?

I've joined the conversation!

JP, the site says it: "Special feature : The blade was made at Mino province which is called Hantanren. Hal oil temper sword."

I appreciate the topic Mason. I don't have any examples to show other than my zoheito. Not being familiar with the words in your topic, I got ejumacated a bit! Ha! So help me get this straight. As I read it, a sunobe blade is drawn-out, single steel (Maruta-to, zohei-to) and a han-tanrento is mixed steels and folded? And the steels mixed can be of any kind?

You guys are blowing my circuits! Neil - totally new - going in the Unknown category in the koshirae section! George - I'll be happy to publish ALL your discoveries on this that YOU come up with! Ha! BTW, it's good to see you active on the forums again! (oh, and I opted for a shot of Nikka Whiskey instead!)

Adam, the guys at Translation Assistance could hammer this out real fast for you: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/15-translation-assistance/

Thanks Thomas, that's actually quite a good example of that Private-purchase stamp! To me, it's not the same as the Matsu stamp: 私

I'm glad they cleared your reputation Chris. So many auction houses sell obvious fakes and ignore our input when we try to let them know, yet here is a guy selling a legit sword and gets harrassed by a nincompoop. Very frustrating.