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Bruce Pennington

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Everything posted by Bruce Pennington

  1. Thanks for the photo of the habaki, Oni. Quite beautiful.
  2. Posting some photos. It's on a Yoshimichi blade. Poor George will be disappointed his blade isn't the one and only! We have 3 now.
  3. Again, unique in that the artwork is chiseled in, rather than cut out. I don't study horimono, so I could be wrong, but I've never seen someone draw horimono that way. More work than you would expect from a faker factory. But, who knows.
  4. The first one is mostly obscured by rust. The only kanji I see might be "naga". # 2 is probably 勝則 (Katsunori) 北川 勝一 The third is unsigned. The paint is a number "975", just assembly numbers.
  5. I don't know what it is, but it's not Japanese. We have an automatic tendency, not undeserved, to call these Chinese fakes. I have done so many times. Yet, the occupied territories had their own sword industry during the war, for their own people. Both fake and island swords are so poorly made, it is often impossible to know the difference. I have never seen an attempt at horimono on either fake or island swords. So this is a new one on me. What do you say Trystan, @BANGBANGSAN?
  6. After comparing his blade to the one I have on file, thanks to @robinalexander, I think they are 2 different swords. George's has a silver habaki and, though not a good photo, the other one appears to be brass. Also the hamon is not the same: They are both in shirasaya, but the sale Rob showed said it was a waki. Hard to say exactly, but I don't think George's is a wak.
  7. Well that's an odd thing to see. I can clearly see one tip of a sakura. I thought at first I could see two, but after setting it beside a known stamp, I'm not sure about the one on the left. The use of the Showa stamp and large Seki overlapped from 1940 - 1942 with the majority overlap being in 1941, which aligns with the date of your blade perfectly. So that supports the idea this was stamped, and then polished out? to add the Seki stamp. Issues - it looks more like a stain, matching the coloration of the rest of the stain below it. And a big one, I had not thought of earlier - it's considerably high on the nakago, to the point of being above the machi on the blade. I would leave it in the "I don't know" category. But I've added it to the file on your blade.
  8. Ha! Love it! Now I'm almost as famous as Stephen! So, is this George one of our Georges?
  9. Thanks to @John C for bringing this to our attention. A craigslist sale posted HERE. What's unique is the blue Seki approval sticker on the saya. The seller says the blade and saya are mismatched because the chuso does not line up with the saya. I personally say this - We believe the saya with these labels are late war. We also think "island swords" are late war. Wouldn't the stickered saya be a logical thing to see on a late-war blade? To me, they support each other in legitamacy.
  10. If I were going, the first stop would be at Piers' house, @Bugyotsuji, to have a drink and ogle his collections! I have only been to Tokyo and Narita, both for work. Didn't enjoy Tokyo as it is, like all major cities, very crowded and the tourist sites are so spread around I spent $80 USD just on transportation. The Palace was closed, as it was New Years Day. Narita has an Old Town with a HUGE temple area. That was quite interesting. Sorry, not much help, but maybe it will get the ball rolling with real recommendations from other guys.
  11. Hm. European theatre. Now it's even more mysterious how he came upon a Japanese sword! Same thing with my Dad's Mantetsu. He was in the Marines after Korea. I never asked him how he got his sword. Just assumed he won it in a poker game or some such thing.
  12. It was fairly common for guys to have their family blades re-fitted for the war. The kamon may be evidence of this in the case of this sword. However there was quite a program by the government and military to get families to donate or sell their old blades for the war effort. The officer in your case could have bought his sword from a shop that had obtained the old blade and fitted it out for the war. Here is an article explaining the program - Converting family swords into Gunto Here is a page on sword care: Japanese SWORD CARE (japaneseswordindex.com)
  13. The older blade is in WWII Type 98 Japanese officer fittings. You can read about them here: Army commissioned officers Shin-Guntō (Type 98 Guntō) 1938 (ohmura-study.net) The silver, round piece on the end of the handle is a kamon, or family crest. There are guys here who can give you an idea of the list of families known to use this crest.
  14. Quite a beauty! I really like the nakago work, too.
  15. Yes, I don't have data, as I don't track blades without stamps, but I'd say at least half of all blades we see have no stamps whatsoever. Many smiths sold directly to private sword shops, bypassing the arsenals.
  16. Reminds me of the very old European days when pale skin was considered upper-class, as those with tans were laborers, so they would wear white makeup. There was even a trend to taking small amounts of arsenic to whiten the skin.
  17. Thanks guys! Really appreciate your work here. Just checked for other Yoshinaga on file. I have 2 and they're both 星谷義長. Seems to be the same mei except the last kanji:
  18. One more today and I'll give it a rest!
  19. This is the closest Masahiro on JSI I could find. I have tons of Masahiro on file, but none with this script-style writing.
  20. Now you need a Nagoya side-latch, and a copper! Ok, maybe a late-war wooden handle too! Then there's the ..........
  21. Pg 16 of the Stamps Doc: "Sha" - private contractor/factory The fuchi stamps on the left show the contractor company that made the gunto. As I understand it, each one of them fully made the sword, blade, and fittings. For Type 95s, they did this work under contract for an arsenal, either Tokyo 1st or Nagoya. Prior to 1942, they were still making them for these 2 arsenals, but we see the stacked cannonball stamp of the supervising Kokura Army Arsenal, with the small inspector stamp in the middle showing us whether it was Tokyo or Nagoya receiving the gunto. Yours has the Tokyo 1st star, so the gunto was made 1942 or later. @Shamsy or @Stegel could tell you a year, but neither of them are on the forum much lately. Maybe @Kiipu or @BANGBANGSAN can give you an idea.
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