dirtvictim

I believe we have a consensus it is not Japanese so I will be using this for parts and I will do a wakizashi and a tanto set out of the blade. Thanks for your help as always you guys are the best.

Blade is for sure damascus.

A better pic of the signature.

Been a while posting. I've been busy making knives and doing custom handles. Hoping someone can help ID this one. Not expecting it to be anything special based on overall looks. Has an unusual handle design where the wood has a cutout relief under the wrap, maybe to keep it slim, it is smallish for sure. signature is very clear as you can see. The habaki has 44404 possibly military and the only numbers on anything. the menuki are quite small. The blade is Damascus I will drop more pics later. Thanks, as usual you guys are appreciated.

This is your forum and your rules, I respect that. Lots of good and helpful information and respectful members. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the input, i will look into shinsa. I had no hopes it was real since the last time I posted a few years ago it was a consensus that the signature was inconsistent to authentic. It was basically free in a large lot of swords and knives I picked up back then, after selling several I owe nothing to it. I do see that the hamon comes close but don't see it actually touching anywhere except at the tang. I suspect it was cleaned prior to me receiving it. Likely a novice made this as you say, kinda wish there was a way to find out who did it. Still confused as to why a fake would be hiding inside these vintage fittings, who would know and seems like a lot of work to just hide it. Looks great sitting on my shelf no matter who made it. Thanks again guys.

Thanks. I have that info just wondering if there is more to learn, perhaps someone knows more about if it really is a fake and perhaps by now knows who did these fakes and when they were done.

I know this is an old post but I thought I would see if any new input on this would be out there. I made a move a while back and it sat in storage, recently put it back on display and got me wondering what more I can learn about it. Thanks for all the help in the past guys.

Are you related to biggie smalls? LOL nice pics.

Looks great. Fill that up then donate it to the dirtvictim. Good job.

That looks great. Don't go waving that all around.

For sure this sword has some questions to be answered but I figured why not snug things up. I won't do anything else to it but I am letting go of my paul chen to make room for it on my wall.

not even a little cool? I looked the piece up, it only had Silver value. Thanks I have coins but they always have more value than scrap silver, I have pounds of this scrap sterling I use on random projects, eventually I will smelt it all down.

Thanks, I have a few pounds of scrap sterling so I use it where I can. I did not see that in examples but I can see where that makes sense. I will remember that if I ever decide to redo them. Thanks.

Stephen has a nice project going on and it gave me incentive to make a couple seppa for a gunto I posted questions about. The tsuba and seppa were loose and I thought why not destroy a perfectly good sterling silver bowl since I had no brass. Cut out was simple, I did a random hammer finish, knurled the edge and gave it an aged patina. Good snug fit now.