Bruce Pennington

Found a nice one for comparison

Don't know if this is clear enough.

Speaking of mons and kikusui - here's one on an old post:

Neil, My post was a "2-cents" value and in no way meant to question your unquestionable experience with koshirae or anything else. I do tend to play Devil's Advocate, though, when someone starts leaning toward an "always" or "never"! Ha! So, you challenged me to dig deeper on the kikusui. I'm only half-way through the NMB database, but just came across this one. It's much better made than this one of this post, but closed ends. That MAY be due to the way it was imprinted or sculpted, though. On a Yoshichika, found ON THIS THREAD.

Did a little search on Gunboards and found several bayonets with stamps on the ricasso, and they are all from arsenals! The Jinsen is in sakura like this Toyokawa. SO, I guess it really is a stamp from the Toyokawa aresenal. Seems they used different stamps (circle or sakura) depending upon the item it was going on.

I don't recognize that tassel, is it leather? Is this on a kyu-gunto?

Well, I have an aversion to pain, so I won't be pulling my hair out! And I've been married for decades, so I've given up on sanity long ago! Of course, the answer may turn out to be "Both are true". But unless we get a real breakthrough, like an Army document or a book like that one Morita-san found for us in the Mantetsu study, we likely will never find out. Won't stop me from trying, though! Sanity is over-rated anyway!

Trystan, Do you have pictures of other arsenals or shops on bayonets like that? Curious to see if they are shop stamps or arsenal stamps. John, sorry for taking an off-ramp from your post! Brian, If you feel it appropriate, we could split this off from my post #27. Could call it "Toyokawa Anchor in Sakura".

George, That's very useful info, thanks! I am still in the gathering stage. I included your earlier post on the Akihisa and Munetoshi Yamagami blades. In it, you point out that prior to the Army's assumption of control over national sword making in 1942, their blades were just numbered, but beginning in '42 they added the Matsu stamp, and finally in '44 the Matsu was replaced with kanji that could be associated with their prefectures - which matches the way stamping changed for all arsenals and blades. While it is WAY too early to draw conclusions, this all has the hint, the faintest whisper, to me of numbering done by smiths and/or arsenals rather than fitting shops. Fittings shops, as far as I know (which is very little!) weren't responsible to these stamping laws, it was the smith/forge and arsenal who were held to this. But, like I say, too early to even say that!

Ha! I'm afraid I don't know. The picture is from a post made by Vajo on an older thread. I just collect pictures of kikusui for my files. I did recently see Sadakazu and Sadakatsu (sp?) mentioned in another thread as a smith that was known to use the emblem.

My 2 cents on the kikusui -From Herman Wallinga's book. The Sadakazu one shows a hand-crafted one that is, in my view, even less skilled ( I'm trying not to say poorly crafted!). We found on an other Minatagawa thread (HERE) that there is quite a lot of variation of these emblems. They were not a fixed stamp, but hand-cut, so artist conception and skill vary for all of them. Second one, bottom row:

This is what George Trotter said about him: "The Yanagawa brothers of Saitama had been making swords in their shop in Suginami, Tokyo (next to Shinjuku) since Meiji Taisho times, (mainly sabres etc which they "signed" with a stamp "Naotsugu"). Their "brand" name was "Shoshin". In WWII they must have also been making gendai which the signed with the usual "cut" mei...usually SHOSHIN or USHOSHIN. "

Picture Please! I wish we could pin down the shop that was stamping numbers rather than using paint. But they seem to be affiliated with higher-end blades. Maybe it was considered "classier" by the shop owner.

Third choice: Doesn't matter to me either way. "check"

It might take a while, but that can be part of the fun of the hobby. It took me 2 years to find all the parts that were missing on my dad's Mantetsu. But it's worth the time and effort. In the end, you wind up with a really good looking gunto and the pleasure of making it all happen.

Bobby, You have a Japanese officer sword (Type 94 or 98, can't tell without pictures of the full saya (scabbard). Someone will help with the smith's name. More pictures of the full blade, and close-ups of the blade tip and a section of the blade showing the temper line, will help tell more about the blade.

Thanks Neil, any other inspector stamps on it?

Thomas, I hadn't made that connection! Are you seeing the "TO" on the kabutogane of the "M" stamped blades?

Thanks David! I'm glad we looked further on that, as it is クKU. And it fits better as all the other Ku are Autumn blades too.

Here's one from BaZZa on the Kaigunto with mon thread:

Barry, Richard Fuller says that is the Toyokawa Navy Arsenal stamp on fittings. It might be, but I'm starting to investigate the idea that it's an actual stamp from a koshirae shop, associated with the arsenal, sure, but a separate shop like Tenzoshan was. The Toyokawa stamp on blades is an anchor in a circle, not a sakura. Thanks for the nice example!

OK, after seeing the rest of the pictures, it is clear that Tsuka was never fitted for that blade. Matching numbers on the saya, so that’s good!

That's what I thought. With mixed items like this there are usually 3 choices: 1. All original, 2. G.I. has a gunto with missing parts, scrounges the sword piles to find stuff to fit, and 3. Post-war piece-together. Since you know the full story of this one, Choice 3 is out, leaving the first two. The most obvious choice is #2 - he picked up the gunto, missing parts, and scrounged around to find some that fit. The small black seppa is correct for a late-war Type 95, so we only have the tsuba and tsuka to wonder about. I haven't seen a habaki. Is there one, or is it missing? If it's missing, it could explain why the mekugi ana don't line up. I'm plagued by the shortened nakago, though. There was a program early in the war for officers to buy Type 95 (or rent) gunto because of shortages. What little we know of the program, though, makes is seem to be during the early years. I haven't heard of it lasting into the end of the war, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still being done. This, to me, has the appearance of a blade that was intentionally shortened to take the officer tsuka (and Oh, BTW, it's got an officer tsuka on it!). Another purely speculative idea is that an NCO, just graduating from officer candidate school, had his 95 modified for the officer handle. But I'm WAY into pure speculation. All we know, in fact, is you have a late-war Type 95 with a modified nakago and an officer tsuba and tsuka! And you know some Bubba didn't do this to the sword post-war.

David, Thanks for adding your blade to the study! Of the 9 " ウ" numbers, yours is the first "Autumn", the rest are all "Spring". Forgive me for being anal, but could I get a picture of the full serial number that would show the ウ, please!? Yours is interesting too, because it looks like the number was mistakenly marked "4 4 6" and realizing his error, struck over the second 4 with a 6!

Mike, Thanks for the photos! Could I get one more of the tsuba (hand-guard) laying by itself? So, the blade IS a late-war Type 95 NCO blade, made by Seki shops for the Nagoya Army Arsenal. The saya is correct and likely original to the blade. The end of the nakago (tang) has been cut off, and the original handle (tsuka) should be wooden. I have one just 2,000 numbers earlier than yours (211894 Seki) and I'm posting pics of the tsuka and nakago for comparison. It's possible yours took some battle damage and the repair team cut the end off. Many of these war trophies came home missing parts. If the tsuba (hand-guard) is correct, then all you're missing is the tsuka.