tbonesullivan

Thanks! Wow I have heard of the maker before, but never seen an example first hand. It has SUGUHA hamon, which I believe is one of the two types these should have. The polish is in OK shape. These really have a great story behind them.

I haven't been stumped this much in a long time, so I hope it's just me not reading Kanji well, and not that the tang was marked post war with incorrect characters. The closest I could come with in Kanji is 仜 村 作 - KO/DA MURA SAKU. Now the first character is super rare, and I only found it by looking up the 工 radical. It also doesn't look quite right. The second looks close but I can barely find anything on that character being used to sign tangs. Any help would be most appreciated. I have no idea why it's in a Kai-Gunto scabbard, but I suspect it was probably swapped when it was being brought to the US, or later.

Yes, I can still see the chisel marks, though the raised area around isn't pronounced. This came in with a group of three, and the other two are younger blades, but definitely look older. All three were relatively recently polished. This one does have a very nice temper line. I tried to get pictures but it's not easy. Eventually I'll make some type of setup to better photograph blades with a phone camera.

This one kinda threw me for a loop for a while. Some of the characters are very close together, so I was having issues telling one from another at times, and also there are a bunch I have simply never seen on Nihonto before. The characters also are a bit stylized, which made them harder for me to recognize. There is one I still cannot decide on definitively, as it looks like 朱 ? As best I can tell, it reads: 金房隼人 ? 正真作 - KANABOU HAITANO ? MASAZANE SAKU I found two smiths which may be the same smith, but neither is quite a match. I also couldn't find ANY under 正真 MASAZANE, just under the similar 正眞 MASAZANE. https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/MAS855 https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/MAS849 Any help, tips, etc would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks! Do you know if there is any Japanese term for this type of alteration?

I agree! This is not a hard one. You shouldn't need anything more than what is posted here: https://japaneseswor...com/kanji/kanji1.htm

FYI, if you are good with drawing with your mouse, I have found this tool to be invaluable in translating Japanese and tangs. I've had to run for help a lot less since I got used to using this. https://kanji.sljfaq.org/

This came in labeled simply as "Japanese Armor Piercing Dagger", and was mounted in tanto style koshirae. The blade is that of a Sankaku yari, but the tang is quite a bit shorter than I usually see on a yari, and does appear to have had the end of the tang cut off. It's got a Bo'Hi with Red urushi, which I'm used to seeing on pole arms. I checked close up and the blade definitely has lamination lines and such. I guess the question is, is this a normal type of alteration that was done? Is this what could be done if the tang ever broke? Is there an "official" name for this type of weapon? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Ahh.. I'm blind. I'm not used to seeing the "old" style numerals at all. Any idea why the older style numerals would have been used instead of using 七 百 三 十 一 号?

Mucking through this by hunting down radicals and hand drawing things has gotten me all but the last 1 or 2 kanji. I can't tell whether it's 一 ICHI followed by something else, or just something I can't recognize at all. The characters I have gotten so far are ペラ州 船第㭍佰参拾, and I am close to certain on these. It's supposed to be a flag from a WWII era Boat Squadron around the Perak River Region (ペラ州 ) in Malaya, however the rest of the kanji are quite old and I'm stumped. I also can't read the last two or figure out what they are supposed to be. Any help would be most appreciated, as machine translation has so far given us a bunch of strange answers.

So I guess 福 高 woud just mean "good luck" or something similar?

Just wondering if anyone has encountered these markings on a 1st Pattern Type 44 Folding Bayonet. The serial number さ896 is easy to see, and the Kanji on the upper left is 福, but I cannot find the upper right Kanji anywhere. The closest I could find is 官 which means "official"? Any help you can give would be most appreciated! There is not much on these bayonets and their markings at all out there.

Just found this on a "barn fresh" WWII Katana by AMAHIDE, and this definitely looks to have been made quite a bit before WWII. I've been working on trying to much through the kanji, but so far one one side I have been able to come up with 西陣住, with the other side having two characters I can't find followed by what I think is 國 - KUNI The other side has just two kanji, and they may be 忠 埋. This is my first attempt at a Tsuba, and I don't think I've ever seen these kanji before. Any help you can give is much appreciated!

Now I'm wondering if the characters in the Bo'Hi were what was on the tang of the blade before it was broken (if it was ).

Is there a way to tell if it is definitely oil quenched? I can see NIE at the transition, and there are some ASHI within the hamon, which does have that iridescent quality to it. I also am pretty sure the body of the blade has very tight MASAME hada, like other blades from the Meiji era I have seen. The scabbard definitely looks to be post WWII.

I managed to get the habaki off.

This is one I've been avoiding for a while, mainly because I've never seen a Tanto that has any kind of signature or message in the fuller / Bo'hi. As best I can tell, it reads 源 宗 定 - MINAMOTO MUNESADA, however I'm very iffy on the last character. I also have no idea whether it would be a maker, or just someone's name. It does look like a Mei. The SUGATA is a very nice Kanmuri-Otoshi, though unfortunately it's got some staining oxidation in areas. The scabbard is marked with 是 永 和 夫, though I'm iffy on the third character. Usually when I see writing on a Shirasaya it gives the name of the smith, but this just looks to be a name. As always, any help you can give is much appreciated!

I've handled a blade by KANEMICHI before, and that one was signed 濃 州 関 住 藤 原 兼 道 作 - NOSHU SEKI JU FUJIWARA KANEMICHI SAKU. This one however is signed 濃 州 関 ? ? 兼 道 作 - NOSHU SEKI ? ? KANEMICHI SAKU I have not been able to figure out what those two kanji are. The NENGO is for 1940, or 2600 years in the imperial calendar, however the two characters before the date are not ones I recognize: ? ? 二 千 六 百 一 年 . Other examples I have seen have nothing before the numbers, or 皇紀. Next to the date for some reason is 関 一 文 字 - SEKI ICHIMONJI, which was added after the original Mei and Nengo, for reasons I do not understand why. I would post some better pictures of the cutting surface of the blade but they will not really help, as it's been quite abused by someone who thought western cleaning and polishing techiniques were appropriate for a Japanese sword. The JI isn't horrible, and a HAMON can still be seen, but the SHINOGI-JI looks like someone took a wire wheel to it. Any help is greatly appreciated!

This is very true. Even Type 95 NCO swords were starting to get close to the price of worn condition P-1944 Shin-Gunto for a while. The WWII collector market remains strong, and a good WWII connection, especially a bring back box or paper, can add more to the value than a traditionally made blade, within reason.

Ohhhhhhhh. Thanks so much!!! Now I get how the date works. I was reading it backwards, and reading the numbers backwards. Looks like the last name is probably Laprade. Looks like he was in the 5th Marines and was at Iwo Jima. Lived his whole life in Easthampton.

Well, this did give me a chance to re-learn Katakana a bit, but some parts of this flag I can't get the right character for, and also the date at the bottom doesn't make any sense to me. This is what I got from it: 禾国 マサツセッツ ? イーストハンプトン プリザント街 77 番 ? ライオネル エーラプレード 日本九 ? 年之十四百九千 日二 月 二 It gives an address 77 Pleasant St Easthampton Mass, and what I assume is a name, though I can't figure out what last name "エーラプレード" would be. The characters I can't find anywhere are the ?s. It looks like the character in the first line is the same as the one after the KYU on the sun. I thought it was hiragana but definitely isn't any character I can find. The date is also very confusing, as it reads 14 hundred 9 thousand? I'm assuming this is some flag brought home post war during the occupation. Any help is appreciated!

The scabbard does have a lock which is aligned correctly. But no way to say whether it wasn't swapped out at some point.

This is definitely the first time I've seen a temper line like this. I am not sure if it qualifies as a "full temper", but it goes quite far into the JI of the blade, and also there is some coming from the MUNE of the blade. The NAKAGO is unfortunately very oxidized, but there are some FUKURE and WARE on the blade, so it definitely is made from laminated stock. It looks to have ITAME HADA, but I can't get any good pictures today for some reason. Just wondering if these were possibly made during the showa era, or whether the blade is older. One of the MEKUGI-ANA is definitely interesting on the tang.

Got in this interesting one a while back and just now am getting to it after dealing with cat troubles, Covid, and other fun things. The blade is unfortunately pretty worn, though it does look old and has been cut down. It's got a tassel on the kabuto-gane and a perforated tsuba. The hanger ring is not removable, so it does not look to be a Type 94, but I usually only see the smooth olive brown paint over a red primer on the Type 94 types. The end fitting on the scabbard (sayajiri?) also is unlike anything I have handled before. It looks to be some kind of symbol. Does anyone know what it signfies? I've also been trying to identify the mon, but have not had much luck, and may have gotten eye strain trying to identify it. Any help is greatly appreciated!

There is mention of this on the Wiktionary page, so it doesn't just apply to sword tangs. The pronunciation "yon" is used more often for this reason.