Lareon

A sword I purchased around a month ago in the US. Nothing special but in good condition

Kelly Schmidt is the man as Brian says he has a newsletter with items in he sends out periodically too which is nice

yeah looks good, decent amount of paint still on the tsuka too.

also please Don't touch the metal with your bare hands, you will damage it. wipe off any fingerprints you may have left on it and as Brian said, read the FAQ on caring for it as a starter.

It's a shame the fittings feel so loose on it but if it's a symptom of original quality control then I'm happy with that. I will finish my 95 collection with a copper handle and an iron tsuba version at some point. Not seen a copper handle in the uk for a while at a price I like So got to get lucky

Ah you solved one of the mysteries for me. this was the no.1 reason i was sceptical, due to my ignorance on the change of pattern I was comparing it to my others and could see the tsuka pattern was different It also feels different in the hand to my others the texture and weight are different

Apologies I forgot the blade serial number photo

PM Sent

Here is my least favourite NCO blade, I debated for a long time whether this was a good fake or not so opinions are welcome. a few things made me question it. It did come with a nice surprise though, there was no mention of a tassel with it when i bought it but when i collected it, what was hanging from the Saya, a genuine NCO tassel (broken) but genuine. the fittings are very loose and feel like they dont fit, there is play in all the fitting and i don't know why. maybe i can fix it somehow. The Saya is Re-Painted black (Badly as you can see from the throat) something about the bohi shape made me suspicious i guess. serials match on the saya and the blade. blade is scratched to hell on the sides but is still sharp - i could ID all previous owners from the fingerprints on it. the feel of the tsuka is different to my other 95s it feels lighter and rougher? anyway here are some photos Will put up more if people want. Tony

Thank you Steve, Pleased I got as far as I did

The sword is in fairly poor condition but I was wondering what the mei said Sho Wa ju ...hachi ??? nen go ??? gatsu fourth - im not sure about may 1943 ? I'm probably wildly off but i'll be interested to see

Perfect, I was looking for something like this recently, thats a great help

Thanks for information - do you have a resource for the age / company / serial number rough dates? Cheers

I saw this for sale here: https://www.antiques.co.uk/antique/Japanese-Illustrated-Text-on-Samurai-Armor-and-Equipment thought the information inside was worth preserving and maybe of interest to someone

Thank you all Tony

Navy Tocho below but you never know what post processing has been done on the photo. throw it in photoshop and make it pop a little and the colour will be wildly different. even take it with a phone and adjust the colour a bit to make it look "cleaner" will adjust the colour

Apologies Thomas, I didn't see this The colour is a very very dark brown almost to the point of black. the serial number does match yes, it's very obscured though, i've taken a quick picture for you as best I can.

I think the second Kanji means cut?

Very interesting reading Bruce. Would love to see a definitive answer to this question.

For Reference

One of the Type 95 from my collection. for those that would like to see it

Cheers Grey, it will have it's mekugi asap, am i right in saying one of the seppa is missing?

Here are some more photos of the Saya