Ron Barker

I have one. From my Facebook page: One of my most prized possessions, a katana that my father was given during his service after WWII. I was able to find someone to translate the etchings on the tang: "The full signature reads Sanshu Ju Tsutsui Kiyokane Saku. Sanshu is another name for the Province of Mikawa and indicates where the smith was from. His name was Tsutsui Kiyokane. The full signature means Made by Tsutsui Kiyokane of Sanshu Province. Now that I can read the full date, it says that it was made in February of 1944. This smith's real name was Tsutsui Seiichi and he was born in 1907. Kiyokane's was a student of Kurihara Akihide, and he served as a Rikugun Jumei Tosho during WWll (Army Certified Swordsmith ). This is shown by the fact that there is a star symbol stamped into the tang. He made high grade modern swords. This is an army blade and not a stainless steel blade as I suspected. The tang is very clean so I thought it may have been stainless but it is not."