Bruce Pennington

Kyle, yours looks like one I have so I checked, and mine has the same copper color. I haven’t tried to test it to see if it’s actually copper. Mine has the same plastic same’ and saya color.

John, After a brief perusal of Dawson's book, he has a couple of examples, one a Type 8 and the other a court blade, that have serious blades like yours. Both were custom made, but he seemed more focused on the fittings rather than the blade. Fuller & Gregory state: "The blade was down to the owner's choice and may often be of some age, being reused from older samurai swords. Contemporary oil-temered or hand-forged gendaito can also be found but are in the tradtional shinogi-zukuri form."

That is what interesting, isn’t Stephen! The Mantetsu run the gamut on price. In good condition they tend to be at the higher end of officer gunto prices, $1,400-2,400 USD. I have seen them go for $3,600 and higher. Poor ones have sold at bottom end like any other gunto.

That's a good one Steve!!! My first reply didn't work, as I was trying to use the keyboard laughing emoji. This is odd because there is another thread where this dealer was getting good reviews. He either copied & pasted the wrong paragraph on the item description or clearly doesn't know what he is doing. But that would be odd because the guys that like him say he sells hundreds of swords.

Seems like I've seen something like this discussed somewhere. I think it was a blade presented to someone, like at a school, or factory, or something.

Steve (Shamsy) says the best ones are coming our of Poland. He showed some pics that, had he not told me it was a fake, I would have been fooled.

????????❤️

Shamsy or Stegel are the go-to guys on Type 95s, and they may correct me on this - but there were NO Seki stamped 95s. The tsuka has that course "sand-blased" look, polished to hide it. Numbers are typed with cutting edge up, like a Nagoya Arsenal blade, but no arsenal stamp on the blade or fuchi. Lousy seppa work. What is that inside the holes of the tsuba? It looks like wood! Dot pattern on the face of the tsuba is wrong. It would be good to see the blade tip, but I've seen enough. A weak attempt at reproducion/fakery.

Good luck! Let me know if you find anything on it!

Brad, hopefully a real translator will chime in (otherwise I'd take it to the Translation help forum on this site), but I agree. It looks more like "Bushu" to me.

Ok, I see that, but have no idea what caused it. Don't think that is common, as you asked, but I don't see it as a problem either.

I'm not sure what you mean by wear/ware under the habaki. Do you mean those horizontal lines?

That's gorgeous Brad! Your collection is growing! Saw your post on the stamp. All I can say is the list of "unknowns" is growing. Thanks for adding it to the Stamps thread.

Kurt, do you own this? Pretty cool, with the "Namizuzu street emblem" stamp!

If you buy the Type 3, Rinji, you get an NCO tassel with it!!!

Thanks Dave! Ant there lies my problem- I no longer use any Windows based devices! Harumph. Steve, I’ve enlarged it at home and it’s definitely a Seki.

Stephen, Sorry my friend. I’m the “pot calling the kettle black” because I have no idea about how to make my picture bigger. I’m just not tech savvy in that regard. DaveR gave me a tip once that worked, but I don’t remember what it was.

Stephen, I love ya man, but you GOTTA learn to use the Zoom function, dude! Here, I tried enlarging:

Daniel, I found it here: http://www.nihontocraft.com/Kanehide.html. They are speculating that the mune stamp may be from the Seki Token contractor. I was wondering about the old story about the Seki stamp, how it was originally a craftsman guild stamp that was later absconded and taken over by the arsenals. This would have happened long before my 1945, or the nihontocraft's 1944 blades were made though. But I still wonder if it's not some sort of contractor's approval/inspection mark on these star-stamped blades. Arsenals tended to put their marks on the nakago itself for a non--traditional blade.

Here they are Stephen. Daniel, that is interesting, I'll have to try to find it, because I'm seeing other mini arsenal stamps on nakago mune as well.

Ed, It's a very weak acid and takes a lot of elbow-grease to work the rust off. I've mostly used it on seppa that had a lot of grime on them. It won't take that annoying black stain out of blades, but it will help remove active built up rust. Afterwards, I use the alcohol to clean and then apply oil.

Stephen, Talking of needing coffee - Woh, I just re-read the post and can see I totally took Rich's comment 180 out. I thought he was saying his blade WAS gendaito with Showa stamp, but he was saying that it wasn't. Sorry guys! On the issue of exceptions to the rule, I can only think of one off the top of my head, for now. I have a Star-stamped Rinji (type 3) that also has a Seki stamp on the nakago mune. It's a Kunitoshi, dated 1945.

Rich, just another example of "there are exceptions to everything!". The Showa stamp is "supposed" to mean non-traditionally made. The more I study this stuff the more exceptions to the rule I see.

David, nice collection with signifcant family history! I have "cleaned up" several of my swords over time and agree wtih both the guys above - do less rather than more. On my first attempt to buff up some fittings on my dad's sword, I realized in removing rust/oxidation, I was also removing some of the original coloration of the fitting! Ouch! A lot of guys have been recommneding pure alcohol (found at hardware stores) for the blade. I tried that recently and it does put a shine to the bare blade, however it doesn't seem to remove any rust. The method I like is to take a rag and sprinkle a small pile of baking soda on it. Drop some lemon juice into the soda, and while it fizzes, rub the rust with the mixture. I would only do this on the Type 95 blade and metal parts. Like John said, your Type 98 might be a low end blade, HOWEVER, the handguard looks civilian and I've seen several family heirloom blades fitted with the leather combat cover like this. So, it's "possible" that the blade might be an older blade worth exploring. It'd remove the handle and bring us some pics of the tang.

Dang Ian, you’re right! I had the same’ in mind when I wrote that.