Bruce Pennington

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.

Yes, the smith obviously put some time and effort into it. I'm just really happy it was available right when I was looking for one! BTW - the seller was Sohei Swords. Anyone know who he is? Is he an NMB member?

Thanks George, I'll file the pics for use on the Koshirae markings. I remember reading that discussion and had assumed the "O" was the number "zero" at the time. But if you have other examples with "Ta" and "i" at the beginning, I can see that the "o" was likely a letter as you say. In your original post you said ""ta" may have identified Niigata Pref. and "o" may have meant Aomori Pref. (I have a number "o"154 on a tang by Aomori RJT Nagao Kunishiro dated 19/2). We just don't know yet." Do you have a theory as to what the "i" represents? Finally, I'm assuming both the Ta and the i were actually in katakana? But the "O" was in Romanji (english). Not unheard of, of course, and many gunto show a mixture of katakana and romanji.

George, I've fixed the Aomori typos. On the koshirae stamps, I'll add your discussion, but it would aid the discussion if I had a good picture for an example. Do you have one you can attach? If not, how about a link to the NMB disucussion, maybe there are pictures from the other guy you mentioned. As to Nick's published order about stamping rented/private purchase - there have been a couple of other "orders" that Nick has found that have no actual examples proving that they were put into effect. This is a third one. He had one declaring that Type 95 serial numbers, when they reached the 100,000 range use a Kanji for thousand (or hundred thousand; I'm going by memory) so "1[kanji]234". We have hundreds of gunto now and NONE of them used that nomenclature. It may be that the stamping was never used, at least we have no known examples that it was. But speaking of that stamp, I compared a Matsu kanji with his stamp, and to me, they don't look the same. Take a look. Are they different kanji, or is the difference simply stylistic?

Ok guys, here’s an Ichi stamped 95 in the 100,000 range! 106773 to be exact. fleabay: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/WW2-Japanese-NCO-OFFICERS-SWORD-MATCHING-NUMBERS-ON-BLADE-SCABBARD-MINTY-C13/402003773216?hash=item5d994ac720:g:qpIAAOSwOzld-5Qv

Chuck, I've found that when my pics are posting sideways, a simple edit/crop, no matter how small on the edges, will fix the problem and they will post upright.

Looks like over 1,400 of them!