george trotter

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think those "mon bearing" showato were indeed the pride of their owners. When a showato cost about 70-80 yen (about a month's salary?) and the owner had it mounted in pierced tsuba and say 6 seppa with mon (another 50 yen?), it is fair to say that they loved their sword. Of course the "better off" class could afford an RJT of other gendaito (maybe double the cost?) and then of course there were those who could afford a Yasukuni sword, blade only was about 180 yen. So, while there are those among we collectors who only collect gendai gunto, it does not mean showato are held in contempt by us...we just collect what we collect. Even ME...I still regret selling a showato (seki stamped blade by Okada Kanesada) with a fantastic large hako-midare hamon that went from the habaki up to midway on the blade and then changed to chu-suguba for the rest (like koto Tomonari). Yes a seki showato, but I should have kept it. About showato with mon having pierced tsuba, I can't answer that, that is for the showato owners to reply to. So, there is no doubt showato have mon...now for RJT (I think yes) and Rinji Seishiki mounts (don't know). Regards,

Thanks Ian. I think your findings and some others here lean us towards showato having mon (not that common maybe) but good info. I agree with you...as a gunto collector I would be "less happy" to pull out a blade on a mon fitted gunto koshirae and find a showato inside....much prefer it to be on a gendaito. Maybe I have seen mon on some showato over the last 50 years but the shock has shut down my memory banks (just kidding). Now of course we need examples on RJT and Rinji Seishiki too. Regards,

It looks like a WWII period gendaito signed FUJIWARA RAI KUNIFUSA. Does it have writing on the opposite side? If so, it will probably be a slogan, such as Flying Dragon or some such. I don't know much about him but he has (if I am correct) been discussed on NMB before. Type in his name in the search box. Regards,

Austus san, I am glad this has been of interest. About your Kanezane. It is a showato IMHO as it is made from yasuki steel (not tamahagane). There is also the sho stamp. I think there is mention of him in various books and sites? Try pp.111-112 of Fuller & Gregory "Military Swords of Japan 1868-1945" Arm & Armour Press 1986. There may be other references/photos around. Regards,

Just typed in "WW2 Japanese sword with star" on google search and looked through about 60 swords with stars. About 40% Type 98 and the rest Rinji Seishiki. None had a mon.

Wow, now 3 showato with mon. So, it looks like it did happen, maybe the floodgates will open Bruce and we'll wonder how come we never saw them ourselves over all these years. Well, great to get the beginning of the answer...maybe just a few showato had mon...maybe a lot? Now, about those Rinji Seishiki mounted blades - no mon, ever?... and those star stamped blades? I have not seen one with a mon. Thanks for looking guys...need more examples to get a clearer picture. Regards,

Hi Bruce...I've got a bit of news, I just spent an hour looking through the web for showato with mon. I must have pulled up 25-30 swords with mon and all were in Type 98 mounts with either pre-showa blades or showa period gendaito. None were RJT stamped or in Rinji Seishiki mounts. BUT, I did find one Seki stamped blade in Type 98 mounts with a mon (removed). Blade by Kaneshige. You can see a description of sword and maker and removed mon and a (poor) overall pic if you type in AWM REL 36469 (this is the Australian War Museum site with object number). Sooo...one showato with mon found! There must be more...just not as common as on "good" swords. No Rinji mounts with mon and no RJT blade mounts with mon were seen. BTW while searching I noticed there is someone advertising/selling silver mon that "are ideal" for attaching to a Japanese sword (saw two different types...one is "that" anchor!)...I don't want to be negative, but I have a sneaking feeling that maybe that Rinji sword we have all seen with the anchor mon is...well...maybe...not quite right? If so, we are back to Rinji mounts having no mon. Must keep looking! Regards,

I think the responses/links so far are a bit uncertain...I sorta knew there were many possibilities for mon use, but so far no definite answer... let's keep looking. So far, one answer seems to show a mon on a showato..I assume that that Kanenori shown is a showato, but maybe it is a gendaito? (looks like showato seki mei to me). That Rinji shown is the only one known with a mon (none of mine have mon) so it would be good to find another one. I sort of expected I would be shown a dozen RJT blades with mon but so far not...so keep checking. You'd think that this board with its huge number of showato/Rinji//RJT etc owned by members would easily have produced a mon in each category by now, but since we haven't, it seems to show that this is not an easy question to answer, Maybe there are 'barren' areas in mon use? (hard to believe). Keep trying guys, if I find any examples I'll post them. Regards,

Just wondering about whether mon appear on the fittings of showato? By this I mean that while I have seen many mon on the kabuto gane of gendaito in military mounts and koto/shinto/shinshinto blades remounted for WWII use, I can't recall seeing a mon on your usual seki made showato (but maybe my old memory just isn't working amy more). For example...I currently have 10 swords, all used in WWII. 8 are gendaito, one is shinshinto/gendaito (c.1890) in gunto mounts and one is a koto blade in samurai mounts fitted with a leather scabbard cover. Of these 10: 1 is private order gendai blade in Type 98 mounts - no mon. 2 is private order gendai blade in Type 98 mounts - has mon (torn off). 3 is private order gendai blade in Type 98 mounts - has mon (torn off)' 4 is RJT blade in Type 98 mounts - no mon. 5 is private order blade in private order Rinji Seishiki mounts - no mon. 6 is RJT blade in Rinji Seishiki mounts - no mon. 7 is RJT blade in Rinji Seishiki mounts - no mon. 8 is RJT blade in Rinji Seishiki mounts - no mon. 9 is shinshinto/gendaito blade in Type 98 mounts - has mon. 10 is koto blade in samurai mounts/leather cover - no mon. So: 5 are in Type 98 mounts and of these 3 have mon (2 taken off on surrender). 4 are Rinji Seishiki mounts and none have mon. 4 are RJT blades - none has a mon. 1 is koto in samurai mounts and has no mon. This tally says 3 out of 5 Type 98 mounted gendaito/shinshinto have mon, No RJT gendaito or Rinji mounts has a mon. I know this is a very small / distorted sample of gendai blades, but just wondering what members have seen regarding showato? Over the decades I have owned probably 6-8 showato and seen maybe 100 more and cannot remember ever seeing one with a mon...just wondering what members have seen? Regards, edit: if this should be in the MON topics, please move it there Brian.

Mmmm...4000 eh. Well, I know I like the examples I have seen, but not that much. Wonder where these heart-stopping prices come from. Oh well, back to reality land...

A good maker Stephen, well thought of in WWII and also post war...only died c. 1996? I have always searched for one for my collection but never found one...only had one in hand. His usual work is in Bizen style with active choji/gonome/saka choji hamon,.also suguba, but of course usually plainer and shorter in Gunto style. (I prefer his gunto work but you already know I'm weird Stephen).. Be nice if you could maybe get your friend to do a pic of the hamon etc? Your friend is lucky IMHO. Regards,

Also not sure of the exact translation, but aikuchi seems to mean "ai" (meet) and "kuchi" (mouth), so aikuchi means "meets the mouth" as in "no tsuba". I could be wrong literally, but this is what I've always thought aikuchi means. Hope I haven't messed up too much. Regards,

My head hurts...3 years writing a book on local military/civil issue arms here and just when I thought it was safe to NMB again... Thank God someone invented rum & coke. Speaking of whiskey, when I worked up in the SW Pacific (Bougainville Island and Guadalcanal etc) we used to drink a whiskey called Hankey Bannister (great). The weather here at the moment is as bad as the islands...maybe I'll have another R&C on the verandah tonight (for medicinal purposes of course). Regards,

Bruce, I just typed in "star stamp" and up came about every matter we are discussing here. On Matsu, that pesky guy Trotter showed a Tokyo sword mounting shop advert from 1942 and it was run by a guy named Matsuyama...sooo...? Maybe he had the contract to do the Yamagami brothers? In relation to those small numbers on the mune of the Takayama Kunihide of Kyoto blades I found two more smiths from that area (same high class area distinctive Rinji mounts) and they were marked: Sugio Matsumoto star 19/9 93 on mune. Endo Tomonari star 19/7 24 on mune. Since both these smiths are mounted the same as my Takashima Kunihide of Kyoto and share the same numbers on the mune...they can't? be smith numbers but must be RJT or mounter or polisher. You have a big job here of figuring out what's what! Time for a rum & coke on the verandah! Regards,

Found another pic of my mumei blade's fittings/habaki numbers with O and 0. Something tells me there is a mountain of research to do to get answers to all this.

Hi Bruce, Yes and no...I must correct/clarify my post, the letter "O" on those fittings is probably a zero. That pic with "O" in romaji and the numbers in kanji is not "the other NMB member's sword fittings" it is on one of my swords Doh!!! That discussion on NMB was with a member who had "O" fittings (if I remember correctly) but on a different high quality mounted sword. I think we agreed that his/my swords were probably mounted in the same shop. The 'i' 403 number on fittings...as it differs from the tang 'matsu' 1080...is probably a fittings shop number, like 'O" number is. Those fittings in pic come off a gunto mounted mumei blade by (I assess) Aizu Kanesada 11 dai c.1890. High quality mounts, cut-through guard and 8 seppa (as was the NMB member's sword). Looking at it again and the numbers behind the habaki, I can say the "O" certainly seems to be used as a zero. The fittings look like a romaji "O" but the arabic numbers on the rear of the habaki look like "0314"...so it appears to mean "0" when used with arabic numbers, not "O" . Maybe, the western "O" is just a punch they used as Japanese numbers don't have zero and they just grabbed a 'zero' looking punch? My "gut feeling" is it means ZERO. The katakana on tangs (in front of numbers) is a RJT code...I assume they mean prefectures as I have seen a couple of smiths with them and they do seem to be "grouped" in the same area (I did keep notes, but where?). They do not 'phonetically' mean the prefecture, they are just allocated as an "alphabetic" identifier IMHO (such as in USA they would use A = NY, B = Calif, C = Ill. etc?. I own the following: Nagao Kunishiro Aomori star katakana 'o' 154 dated 19/2. Type 98 Very little info on him...need to see more RJT swords from Aomori RJT smiths to check 'o' prefix theory (memory says I have seen a couple). Yamagami Munetoshi Niigata star " 'ta' 2356 dated 19/3 Rinji Have not seen many late war blades but when this 'ta' starts there is only a star stamp with it, the 'matsu' stops (number still the smith's tally number with a new prefix?)... Just some other observations for your interest: Takashima Kunihide Kyoto star (on mune ) 98 dated 19/8 Rinji GT Coll. " " " " 90 dated 19/8 " NBTHK hozon " " " " 99 dated 19/8 " I have looked through my notes but can't find any more references to RJT tang numbers. I think this is a job for you Bruce. Look up as many RJT (late war) blades as you can find and see if they have a "katakana/number" code and see if they are grouped. From my own casual observations over time I can say that: Osaka/Okayama/Kyoto area RJT seem to have small numbers on nakago mune, but whether a RJT mark or a polisher or mounter or smith tally mark I can;t say. Gifu/Seki/Nagoya RJT smiths seem to only have a small 'seki', 'na' (Nagoya) or 'gi' (Gifu) stamp. Don't recall any 'tally' code/numbers here. I remember seeing a Seki RJT in Type 98 dated 1944? with the 'fittings numbers' in kanji tho' (from memory Seki Mitsunobu fittings O127? this was in last 6 months on NMB) . Final word...Just thinking out loud (Nick hates this)...but could these tang marks be the RJT 'shinsa' record number? I mean, each RJT blade was 'shinsa'd" so maybe this is the RJT shinsa-in's record number in case a sword should fail in the future the inspector who passed it would be identifiable...just thinking...sorry all! Hope there is something of value here, Regards

Amazing what turns up for sure...That scabbard looks good Dave,should turn out nice. Hard to tell if there is any "special purpose" to the fittings like these. Maybe, as you say Neil, just special order fittings...I think that is certainly the case with my Rinji Seishiki above, but these green bindings, maroon saya and silvered fittings, although rare, seem to stand out as a bit of a 'type" don't they. Maybe one day we'll get a firm fact on them. Regards,

Hi Neil, That binding looks like the dark green type.Who is the smith? Any idea why some swords are silver plated fittings and green binding? Nice quality. Regards,

Thanks for fixing article. About the koshirae stamping...left style of matsu is close but I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the style, after all, those 2 examples you/Nick show are just printing type. Take a look at mine below...this may be (pretty certain) the stamp of the Yamagami bros. themselves...pretty sure it is the same on all their tangs - I think they put it on, but really, I don't know, other than to say that only the Yamagami bros swords have it (so far as I have seen). Here below also is a pic of "the other nmb member's" fittings...you will notice they are 'O' with kanji numbers except on the back of the habaki where they are arabic numbers. I can't remember who this nmb member was or the post. I haven't got a pic of mine (swords packed away just now) but my Rinji Seishiki mounts markings are the same except all my fittings are kana 'i" with arabic numbers as "i 403". These are on the blade now discussed below. Matsu stamp on Rinji Seshiki mounted blade by (Yamagami) Munetoshi with RJT star, dated 18/5. All fittings incl habaki stamped "i 403" but tang stamped "Matsu in circle 1080". This matsu stamp appears on his and his brother Akihisa's swords, both private order and RJT. It is seen as follows (in date order). Most are from pics of swords or swords I have seen, but don't own: Akihisa 17/2 star matsu 542 Rinji " ? matsu 61 Rinji Munetoshi 17/4 matsu 11 Rinji " 17/11 star matsu 422 ? " 17/11 star matsu 433 Rinji " 18/1 star matsu 508 Type 98 * Akihisa 18/3 star matsu 819 Rinji Munetoshi 18/5 star matsu 1080 Rinji fittings/habaki stamped i 403* Akihisa 18/10 star matsu 1377 Rinji 19/3 onwards the RJT kana/number on tang system is seen. * = GT coll. These are the tang markings that precede the list above. I don't know why some numbers in these lists are "out of number sequence" and "out of date sequence": Munetoshi 16/7 106 (no star or Matsu) Akihisa 16/9 249 " Type 98 Munetoshi 16/9 308 " " Akihisa 16/12 566 " Rinji Hope this helps. Let me know if you MUST have pics of my koshirae markings and I will dig them out. Regards,

Hi Dave, I know we've strayed a bit from TOCHO, but binding is interesting too. That style and colour is interesting. I had a sword years ago (when I was still in nappies) and it also had that deep green binding (but 'normal' style). Fittings were standard Type 98 BUT it had silver plated guard/fittings etc and the metal saya was a deep red / maroon colour. The blade was by Ishido Teruhide. I have seen pics of the same style of mounting only about twice in the last 3 decades...wonder if it was a special mounting style for a special group? Interesting stuff - this is another one for Bruce haha.. Regards,

Just read through your pdf compilation on markings etc Bruce...great work. I have a couple of comments on the Yamagami Munetoshi blades (Niigata RJT smith) in the page titled "stamped numbers". In this part I contributed to the Munetoshi "Matsu" stamp information and I now see that the "matsu" in a circle is mentioned in the very last pdf page as being (researched by Nick Komiya) to be a "private purchase & rental' number. If so, then Yamagami Munetoshi and his brother Akihisa, both great smiths of Niigata, sure hired out a lot of their swords, including those with a star on them. I say this as of the 15 blades by them I have seen in hand/or pics, 7 had 'matsu" stamps., Also in this same 'stamped numbers' paragraph I mention the use of "o154" on another tang by Kunishiro, an RJT of Aomori prefecture..on this I messed up...I said a couple of times that 'o' was a code for Aoyama prefecture...of course it is actually Aomori prefecture (can you correct?). Another minor point on fittings markings that is not included (that I could see) was one I think we discussed on NMB once...it was the stamping of small "kana and arabic numbers" on the fittings of Rinji Seshiki mounts on a Munetoshi blade I have (Rinji with star) numbered "matsu 1080" on the tang, with the number "i 403" stamped on all fittings (tsuba, 3 seppa, sayaguchi, hacho clip) and also on the base edge of the habaki itself...just thought I'd mention it as another NMB member posted pics of the same thing in a discussion once, so it is a "variation" to look for. I'm guessing, but probably just a fittings shop number as it is not connected to the tang mark "matsu 1080". Mine and the one on nmb (can't remember smith) are the only two I know about. You're doing great work Bruce...keep it up. Regards,

Nice binding Neil. Oviously an officer with a few extra yen could get his sword mounted to his personal taste (wouldn't be cheap!).That Ikkanmaki on a Type 94/98 is one I have never seen in hand, so very rare. While rare on Type 94/98 mounts it is the standard for Rinji Seishiki mounts (it was also called 'katate-maki' wasn't it?). It comes in both lacquered and unlacquered style. Within the Rinji Seishiki types I would think that the rarest of the rare is the binding I show on the tsuka in the OP...it is a leather binding called 'gangi-maki'. I have only seen it on mine and in another two pics of Rinji Seishiki mounts...so also rare. Interesting pic Neil, thanks for sharing...I do like 'variation' discussions. Thanks also to Thomas for that "Tocho" source reference. Regards,

AAARGH! I see Ed has that book also....maybe I should just shut up!

Doh! It always happens...I spoke too soon again.! Good library Guido.

Sorry John, I just saw that I had not answered your question. This is a difficult one. All I can say is (1) "probably" the RJT smith signed the work as he finished and they were either inspected and stamped at his forge when collected (monthly?) or (2) stamped at HQ after they were collected by the inspector (monthly?). As this RJT system worked over long distances, this would mean that some blades finished/signed and collected would be rejected and so would get no star.... meaning there are signed blades out there with flaws and no star...maybe he got paid a lesser fee for a flawed sword but it would be permitted to be sold on without a star or, if too flawed it would be recycled into the next supply of RJT tamahagane...I am only guessing here but it seems a logical assumption. As the RJT regulations say, and as is supported by Chris Bowen's experience with RJT, the inspection process was carried out on every sword in terms of workmanship, shape, mei and date cutting etc, but testing for actual performance/quality was only done on samples selected periodically. This means that every sword must meet all standards all the time! Visual in-hand inspection decided whether the sword got a star, but only a 'percentage' of each smith's work was taken to be physically tested (maybe to destruction?) at random from monthly bundles of star stamped 'passed inspection" swords. This system would mean that RJT smiths would always strive to produce good work because (I presume) they never knew when one of their finished swords would be taken for physical testing. So...to give you your answer, I think the RJT swords were signed/dated before collection/inspection. I say this as I don't think an inspector would have time to go to 50 forges around the country every month to inspect unsigned RJT swords and then, having passed them, wait at each forge for each 50 smiths to sign them before he stamped them and took them back to Tokyo...he would never get through them all. The same applies to the other system, meaning that the inspector collected the swords of 50 smiths around the country (or they sent them in?) and then, after he inspected them as OK back at Tokyo he had to send them back out to be signed/dated according to RJT standards and then wait for them to come back so he could check them again and star stamp them....no, I think they were signed/dated at each forge and either inspected/stamped there or sent in to Tokyo where they would be inspected/stamped. As I said, I am only assuming this as we have little archive proof. I know Nick Komiya hates guessing and rumour but this is really all we can do at the moment. This really is a task for Nick I think...he has already shone so much new light on the Rinji Seshiki Gunto area of study, I hope he "finishes" the small details of the RJT part of the story also. Regards,