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備前國住長船祐定作 Bizenkoku Jyu Osafune Sukesada Saku （永禄）？二年二月日 （Eiroku）？ 2 year 2 Month Day/1559？ Feb

備前國住長船祐定作 Bizenkoku Jyu Osafune Sukesada Saku （永禄）？二年二月日 （Eiroku）？ 2 year 2 Month Day/1559？ Feb

+1,I would like to know that as well, my two: セ 1066 &セ 2575.

Tom Not many of Mantetsu in this mount, nice!

Do not remove the screw, it's very easy to break. Nothing under the handle needs to see. You can clean the blade, it is machine-made.

John You had many colonel's tassels, and general 's tassel, it's more expensive than a lot Gunto!

Denis Same as Bruce, I like the sword with tassel, I'll buy the tassel if it has not come with one already. There are a lot of tassels for Type 98 for sale, the hard part is if you have many NCO swords and want all of them to have the leather tassel on.

Steve I'm not sure if these remount 95 are all post-war put together either. But there is plenty of post-war remount 98, even nowadays in US, Japan&China. Why not the dealer reuse 95 fittings and sell it to the customer like 95 mounts? Especially most of the blade of 95 got destroyed in Japan, it's a waste of resources, right?

Tom I saw a few 95 remount with none arsenal blade before, including a couple of sold in Japan.

John All my 造兵刀(one is Type 94) has pierced Tsuba, gloss Saya(two colors),middle position hole for lock, maybe Type 94/early Type 98 mounts is standard fitting for Zohei to? They still making 造兵刀 in 1945，and lot more than 95.

Bruce I'm good with Kanji ,ok with 仮名／かな Kana,this one looks は Ha/Wa

Bruce One more stamp for you ,it's on the type 97 Kai Gunto.

Saw it on Ebay,the final price is good.

Most of 造兵刀 are in Type 98 fitting though. like those 造兵刀 and have few in my collection.

I think NCOs always less than Type 98 GUNTO on the market.Nice NCOs are getting hard to find for sure.

Dan I don't think 12 NCOs at one show is a small number, besides as Mark mention, there were around 30-40 of them at the show. Just look at eBay,most of the time not over 12 of NOCs listed. And from my observation,NCO's price went down a bit, the sword list on eBay in the same condition last year will go fast, but not in the past few months, even with price markdown. I'm not saying the interest of NCOs is lower now, maybe the market is back to the way it should be without Chinese collectors buying a lot them nowadays .It's a good thing for collectors in the US.

+1，I pass a very nice Yasukuni sword at a good price before, because it's not in Gunto fitting. Paul, I read your article with great interest, as I can see myself described there in some ways. You of course have concentrated on the blades, but a sword is a combination of blade and koshirae. There are many of us who frequent this military forum who study the variety of WW2 swords, blade+koshirae as part of Japanese sword history, not necessarily as collectors of militaria.

Bruce I replied earlier -kabuto Gane -飯 & 島 ,Could be Name for 飯島 (IIJIMA )or fitting from 飯島刀劍製作所( Iijima Token Seisakusho)

Tang- 備州長船清光 Bishu Osafune Kiyomitsu kabuto Gane -飯 & 島 ,Could be Name for 飯島 (IIJIMA )or fitting from 飯島刀劍製作所( Iijima Token Seisakusho)

I like this one

From right to left ,It says 銃劍館(Guns& Swords Shop/House）。

kind of look like corrosion from the blood.

ワ（Wa) or フ(Fu) ? 三O四（304）

Those seller/counterfeiters just try to fool the people don't have too much experience about Matntetsu sword but after the name of Mantetsu. They don't care about other parts, is the signature make them making a lot of money.

John, these are not from Japan. Some sword sellers in China made these. I don't know those guys, my friend in China send me this photo and told me people started to make these Mantetsu a few years ago.