CrysGreen

Stephen, that link was AMAZINGLY helpful. Thanks so much.

It is strongly magnetic. About 7.5 cm by 6.8 cm by 4mm thick.

Hi all. I have a beautiful Jakushi tsuba with dragon/waves that I have Googled my way to a mei guess. It is signed on both sides. I think it says Ryuunken Koretaka Jakushi Kiyobo-Sanjin. I could sure use a few more eyes on it though to confirm that. Thanks so very much, Crystal G.

Given the date of 1942, I've narrowed the options to: Kazuyuki Kazumitsu Kazunori Kazutoshi Kazuo Ichishin Ikko Ippo. Unless of course it is a phrase rather than a name. I have reached out to some friends that are MUCH more proficient in Japanese, but no luck so far. I very much appreciate the help from this group so far. If anyone else has any ideas, I'm desperately curious about this mei. It is a unique looking mei and the koki dating system was atypical for the time from what I understand...so it's very mysterious.

Koki, right. Not kiko. I'm learning.

It's the Kiko date system. It says 1942 I believe.

Here is the date.

It is dated 1942, so maybe not ichibun. Although I also looked at that as a possibility too.

I looked at "IPPO" as an option as well, but can't find any showa era smiths.

Right. I had it that far as well. The second character looks like Hiragana...maybe "wa" or "o" or "a"...but none are an exact match, and none combine with Ichi or Kazu to make any smith's names I can find in WW2 era. I'm stumped.

Hello. New to the site. My name is Crystal and I have recently acquired a Showa era blade in type 98 koshirae. The mei on it has me scratching my head though. None of the possibilities I see come up in any WW2 era searches I do. There is also a Seki stamp if that helps. Any assistance would be hugely appreciated.