Hidas

Thanks K Morita - that was really useful, I searched for Minamoto Tetsuo and found another sword with a slightly different mei but a very similar style of carving: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/en-gb/item/85976960_wwii-Japanese-army-officer-s-sword As above it is signed Higo Minamoto Tetsuo Saku which seems like a good match? and they studied under Moritaka Yasuhiro - who Klaus has kindly provided more information in an earlier post. However searching for Terada Yoshimitsu brought up another sword from this Forum: That sword is dated to 1981 which is much later than other swords I've seen though. In the thread Joe (SwordGuyJoe) was able to provide more info on the smith: And a reference from Markus Sesko's Index of Japanese Swordsmiths: After all that I'm not 100% certain on who the smith was, whether it was Terada Yoshimitsu or Moritaka Yoshio or another separate person? They were born just 2 years apart but the younger studied under the other which I imagine is a close age range for student and smith but might be common for all I know. Thank you Klaus, Uwe, Thomas, Steve and K Morita for all your help.

Me too... I'm a complete beginner so have spent the last couple of weeks trying to find mei in a similar style and failing! Hi Klaus, Thanks for the comment, I'll post pictures of the blade on the forum as soon as I can get some good ones. I've edited the images tone and contrast etc to make the cuttings more obvious in the photos but they do seem to be deep and well defined compared to a lot of others on here, is there anything that can be read into that in terms of the smith or school? or is it just their unique style? they almost seem to join up the lines in the kanji which I imagine would be hard to do with the tools available. Thanks

Thanks Steve, that's really helpful. I thought that might be the first 2 Kanji for the smith but was not confident at all. I'll take photos of the blade and fittings to see if I can find any more info on it, would the military sword forum be best given the date of the blade? Updated Translation: Thanks, Will

Hi Uwe, Thanks for looking at this, it's really helpful to see how you have interpreted the kanji and begin to see the style of writing. I'll keep looking at the Mei and hopefully make more sense of it now. Thanks

Hi All, Looking for some help with this Mei as I'm struggling to recognise most Kanji. I think the Omote starts with Higo as the first 2 Kanji (肥後?) to mark the province and the final 2 Kanji on the Omote are Saku Kore ( 作 之?) - , and the Ura ends with Month 月 ? Any help translating and identifying dates or swordsmith would be most appreciated. Thanks, Will