Bruce Pennington

I see now. I just scanned 6 of the 24 pages showing earthlink.net posts and the massive majority of them are Stein links. There are a couple more guys ~jggilbert and ~rsblade, so earthlink.net has either stopped allowing personal site creation (don't know the terminology) or these guys have simply stopped their sites, like Rich.

My vote is for John's #2 and #3 points. When you see a replica marketed on ebay by the Chinese, and labeled as a replica, they are often asking only $150. That means it cost them less than that to make it. Like John said, more accuracy will increase time and labor - cost - to produce. But just speculating, as I've never asked them myself! Paul Chen of Hanwei, a Chinese company, has sold some pristine copies, but they were over $1,000.

David McDonald gets the most mentions: Japanese Swords, Antique swords, WWII swords, Tsuka-maki, Translations, Restoration, Sell, Buy (montanairon.com) Chris Lohman also advertises the craft. Don't recall hearing any word-of-mouth on his work: Japanese Sword Restoration Parts & Supplies - Fred Lohman Company (Japanese-swords.com) There are many others, though.

Oh, I think you nailed it, John. Here is the blade. You can see it was made for a Type 8/19. I don't think that nakago shape would have been a kyugunto.

Doing a search of NMB - earthlink.net - I get 24 pages. I didn't check them all, but every one I checked gets this result:

This is the latest one, but there are many: http://www.home.eart...net/~steinrl/koa.htm It was posted by @k morita here:

Brian, Do you know the reason none of the links to Earthlink.net pages work anymore? I assumed the company with out of business, but all searches online make it look like they are an active company.

Since we’re on unusual habaki, I’ll add @John C’s wooden one he made for his shirasaya he shared HERE:

No way! Is this a, well I can’t really say “common“ practice, but have you heard of this before?

Wow, what a sleuth you are, Trystan! Good one. Another 'tell' was the 5 digit number stamped on one of the seppa. Standard Chinese practice, but never seen one on the seppa like that before.

That's our earliest known one, thanks Trystan!

Boy, this thread needs to be pinned in a newly created "Education on Swords" forum! Great stuff guys!

Another point on the NCO sword is that the numbers being upside down are only seen that way on Nagoya blades. This sword is trying to be a Tokyo blade. Tokyo blades have the numbers to be read with the cutting edge down.

I don’t have any plans beyond what I have already published, the stamps document, the Mantetsu article, and the souvenir article. You do have me thinking, though! It would be interesting to see how much material we would have if we combined all those with the articles Mal Cox is writing on smiths and forges. If we could get Stegel or Shamsy to write an article on type 95s we might actually have something.

There were some Type 19s with fighting blades in them, with the "dress sword" type handle. The nakago would have a screw end and the end of the handle will have a piece that can unscrew allowing the handle to come off.

Showa stamp at top. Safe to say no date on the other side?

A great mon on a Navy kyugunto, seller says blade signed by "Yasutomo", can't confirm as they failed to post nakago. Found at this Online Auction

Not a gunto, but served in the war - really worn red urushi on this old blade: found at this Carl Watson's Orange Coast Auction

Not that I know of, John. Just checked the blades stamped with Seki and they span the whole alphabet.

This is really going to come down to your own tastes. That is a fine sword. Older sword re-fitted for the war. I don't think it's mumei. You can faintly see a mei under the corrosion.

天明 is 1781, so either way you're looking at 1787 or 1785

FYI - that's the earliest Masahide, with Kao, I have on file.

PLEASE DO!!!

I don't know anything about civil tsuba, so those guys will have to comment, but if it were on a WWII gunto, I'd say it's a poor copy.

Thanks Thomas, good ones! That's correct, all Gifu. As I think about it, the Showa and Seki stamps were originated because Seki area smiths & shops were bothered by poor showato on the market. I've never checked the blades with these stamps to see if they are all Gifu/Seki smiths. It would be logical, but I don't know it for a fact. The dated blades (all 3 of them) seem to parallel the dated use of the large Seki stamp 1941 increasing to 1942. Don't know what that means, but an observation none the less. Latest Chart Tan 1941, Aug Kanetsune – Gifu Yahoo Auction 1942 Sadatsugu – Gifu Hxv, NMB 1942, Jan Kanetada – Gifu David Price, NMB ND Kaneaki (RJT) – Gifu Cillo, pg 37 ND Kaneaki (RJT) – Gifu Military trader, W-A ND Kaneaki (RJT) – Gifu G584, NMB ND Kanekuni – Gifu Zook, NMB, kaigunto ND Kanekuni, Ogawa – Gifu F & G, Swordmiths, pg 78 ND Kanenaga, Amichi 包永 – Gifu Waljamanda, NMB ND Kanesumi, Sato (RJT) – Gifu Sksguide, NMB ND Kanetoshi – Gifu Slough, pg 122 ND Kanetoshi – Gifu GregD, NMB ND Kiyonobu, Nagamura - Gifu Cillo, pg 85 ND Kiyonobu, Nagamura – Gifu Beater, NMB ND Kiyonobu, Nagamura – Gifu Aukshunshuset.com ND Kiyonobu, Nagamura – Gifu Nic, NMB