Bruce Pennington

Wow, George! You have examples of his work through pg 39. So, plenty of his work observed, but still little known about him.

I'm not a gendaito follower, so one of those guys will have to advise. Seems a bit high, unless he's a well respected smith. Gendaito in RS fittings tend to be more in the $2,400 range, in general. But take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I don't know gendaito nor this smith.

I want to say it's a Sun and Moon mon, but I've lost all my good mon webpages. I think @SteveM might have a good source.

Neither Slough nor Sesko has this WWII Kanenami listed either. Maybe @mecox might know of him?

What does the text say around them?

I do, We can talk via PM if necessary. But he doesn't sell bad swords, He sells legit stuff. I just don't care for the marketing technique. It's promoted by ebay. When you post something for sale, they recommend putting as many descriptive words in the title as possible to draw more views from searches. And so, he does! Lots of words that may or may not have anything to do with the actual sword being posted. His item description is always accurate. It's just the title that can be overly loose.

Dang, good eye, Conway! I didn't look closely enough at the backstrap 'ear' emblem. It's a plum, isn't it.

I just realized I had 2 fake 19s on file: and

Just curious, do you think something is missing from the center? It appears the surface underneath was smoothed over.

One good clue in checking for fakery is to check where the item is shipping from, in this case: "Located in: he nan , nan yang, China" Very common to see fakes shipping from China.

They are not very common, but I have seen two or three.

This is quite common. Mostly, I don't think many collectors, or sellers, know of the history. Even when they do, I still see them use such terms most likely because there are certain names prospective buyers use to google search. Type 44, Type 3, Late-war Army, NLF, Marine Landing Sword are the most common names used for this style, so sellers will put such names in the titles to draw in searches. I know a seller that puts all sorts of names in his titles, even though I know he knows the names are inaccurate, like "WWII Japanese officer NCO shingunto sword", just to maximize the search engine results.

Hello Mike! Wow, that's a blade made in the mid-1500s brought to the war, re-fitted in Type 94 fittings. @PNSSHOGUN might correct me on that. It was a fairly common practice. Many family blades were brought, or donated, or sold to the military for the war effort. The brown/blue tassel was used by Company grade officers, Lt's and Capt's. You can read up on the war swords, with plenty of great examples here: Army commissioned officers Shin-Guntō 1934 (Type 94 Guntō) (ohmura-study.net) And read about the effort to get family swords for the war here: https://www.warrelic...blades-gunto-688110/ Ray, and others, could give you a more precise value range, but these tend to run $2,400 USD or more, depending on the reputation of the smith.

This was done with old blades, that's true. But this one was made during the war.

Hi Ali, Sorry to tell you, but this blade was made during WWII. The small Showa stamp at the top was used from 1935 - 1945, but mostly 1940-1941. The smith is a Seki area smith named Kanemichi. Someone else can give the full translation.

Hi Steven, This was made (date upside down) March 1944. Someone will have to help with the mei (maybe Masatomo? But I'm not good at mei). On another note, this is not an NLF sword. Never used by the navy. It comes by many names, since for decades no one really knew what they were. Nick Komiya found the documents and history of them, though, a couple years back. They were a contingency model produced for the Army, designed to cost less but be more durable in the field. Since there is no real name for them, they are now called Contingency Model, or Japanese version - Rinji seishiki. Thomas calls them a Type 100 as they were officially announced in 1940. You can read all about them: Not a "Type 3" and Unveiling the Rinjiseishiki in 1940

Charles, We don't have much factual data concerning swords made in occupied territories. There is an interesting story from a POW where he tells of making many 'samurai' swords ordered by the Japanese for PETA soldiers: In his recounting, he said "Towards the end (of the war)..."

Agree with Chris. Whoever did the re-paint, painted the handle 'diamonds' the same brown as the ito. Real Type 95, though. Your price range is good, but like Stephen said, you can get one at that price with legit paint too.

Didier, I am absolutely the wrong guy to ask on that, sorry! My post above was just a quote from the Aoi site. There are plenty of nihonto guys that can address that for you.

For what it's worth, I find no WWII smiths that use "川" in thier mei. There are lots of smiths with gawa in their real name, but not in the mei. It is found in location names. Edogawa is a ward in the Tokyo area, but I don't know if they spell it the same way.

The source being New Guinea could explain the low quality. These might be "island swords" made on location by locals. The quality of their work is always quite poor. If you are looking for legit Japanese WWII swords, you should pass on these, unless you are attracted to the island sword category and the price is right.

Are you talking about the Aoijapan blade or Didier's blade? Guys may correct me, but the Aoi blade is described as: Jigane :Niedeki suguha with small ashi and Kinsuji work. Bo-shi is rather long and hamon is komaru. Hamon :Nie deki suguha based koala well work and kinsuji work. I don't think oil quenched blades have those details.

勝則 (Katsunori) Real name: 北川 勝一 (don't know the English on this) Looks like the larger Seki stamp at the top. Sesko lists 1 Katusnori, but it's not the same one, I don't think.

It was a tough decision, because like you, I could see the marks of time and use all over it. It looked like it had quite a life. I knew I would lose that be renovating it. Maybe for balance, I've left my star-stamped Rinji untouched. They both can be appreciated, but for different reasons.