drjoe

thanks for your reply. my signature block has my correct first name: Joe. here is what came up on a google search for this smith, though the mei appears quite different: http://ryujinswords.com/kanetatsu.htm http://ryujinswords.com/kanetatsu2.htm from what i can tell, this is a single smith who signed his name with 4 characters. it seems as if his blades have been papered: http://nihon-to.blogspot.com/2007/01/ja ... miths.html though he is not on Dr. Stein's list of Rikugun Kumei Tosho smiths. i would like to hear others' opinions about the manufacture of this blade. what kind of steel? oil or water quench? could it be from the 1920's? the link above suggests that showa stamps go back to 1926, though here the same author suggests that the stamps started around 1940: http://ryujinswords.com/shostamp.htm

thank you morita san. i'm embarassed that the 5th character was simply KANE repeated again. i looked long and hard at the 3 remaining characters trying to match them up. you have to admit (?), the writing seems a bit rushed. here he seems to have taken his time: http://home.earthlink.net/~ttstein/kanetats.jpg should i repost to the gunto section for more opinions on the blade details?

a friend of mine picked this up at a garage sale for a paltry sum, and i am trying to help with identification. to my novice eye, it is obviously a showa-to, and the half stamp on the nakago seems to be half of a showa stamp, which probably dates this to post-1940 and certainly firmly within the WWII era. the blade is not in good polish, and has a lot of light surface scratching from sandpaper (?), so i have trouble seeing any hada (sometimes i can imagine an itame hada, but then i think it's just pitting and then dust in the photo). the overall appearance has a kind of dull look to it that makes me think the steel is mill steel or mantetsu, though maybe this is just an effect of the polish. on the other hand, it does seem to have a "real" temperline and i don't see any obvious evidence of oil quenching. so, my guess is a non-traditional, possibly machine-made showa-to that was water quenched. i'd hoped to have more luck with the mei. i got SEKI JU KANE ... SAKU, but i'm having trouble with the next three kanji after KANE. the handwriting is rather loose making it hard for me to match up characters. it seems just a little unusual to have a 4-character name on a blade like this. there is no date on the ura side, though the owner said there might have been a tag indicating it was from 1926. given the stamp, that date seemed unlikely to me. for what it's worth, the blade is not in gunto fittings, but well-worn traditional mounts with antique koshirae. translation help as well as thoughts about the blade itself would be appreciated, thanks.

added a few pictures for posterity.

yes, those were my thoughts, though the seller did vow that this was Japanese made and not "chinese junk!" what's interesting to me is that this is clearly designed to be a reproduction of a shinsakuto. we've all seen the awful chinese copies of showa-to and the like, but this is the first deliberate copy of a shinsakuto i've seen.

this is not a nihonto, so a little off topic, but i was wondering if people would like to comment on this blade: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... ink:top:en the seller is in china, making me automatically skeptical that this is a reproduction, and the hamon really baffles me. maybe it's an effect of san mai construction, but the "line" seems unusually thick and there's not a huge amount of activity in the hamon like you see in typical shinsakuto. at first i thought maybe it isn't even folded, but looking closer there is clearly a hada, albeit a somewhat sloppy one. any opinions on what this is? real shinsakuto or chinese fake?

there does seem to be a clear hada, so to my amateur eye this is folded and water quenched. i'm not quite clear on the signature though... here are two others by what looks like the same smith, but a slightly different way of signing. http://www.samuraisword.com/nihonto_c/g ... /index.htm http://www.nihontoantiques.com/fss162.htm did smiths regularly use variations in their signature (e.g. omitting "Ju" or the date) on blades?

there seem to be many different Kanehisa's during the showa period. i don't have a copy of John Slough's oshigata -- what is the best way to determine more about the maker here? the hamon on this blade is quite interesting... would this be the best place to post it, or should i create a new post in the different section?

never mind... you'll be happy to know i found the answer on the same page! thanks... http://www.jssus.org/nkp/installing_japanese_fonts.html

for some reason, my computer has recently stopped displaying kanji. all of the characters are now blank boxes... i don't suppose anyone knows how to remedy that?

I agree at least work on the smith, Kane is easly found ...what books do you have. Maybe find a Japanese Samurai Sword by John Yumoto and work on kanji from his book or check with Grey Doffen for his flash cards. i apologize for my laziness. i have many of the entry level books on nihonto, including mr. sinclaire's "samurai" book, but i have never picked up yumoto and i don't have a book that has a lot of kanji or mei. thank you for the help. joe pierre

translation plus english translation please! thank you!

does seem to match this one from rich's site, though there is an extra last character, and no sign of a star stamp: http://home.earthlink.net/~ttstein/sukenobu.jpg is this likely to be machine folded steel, or actual tamahagane?

can someone tell me what the mei on this sword says? http://www.nihontoantiques.com/fss260.htm also, i've noticed several showa-to with the painted on kanji -- looks like the date -- can you tell me why/when this was done?

hmmm... and this one is a different nidai kinmichi? with a signature that starts above the ana, but an ura kiku mon? http://www.users.on.net/~coxm/oshigata% ... 20s11.html any final guesses about my blade? can someone point me to a good article about signature forgeries and the various reasons this might have been done on this sword? thanks joe

any speculations on the gimei based on the rest of the blade? i was told it's probably a shinshinto (now that i've held it, it is indeed quite thick and heavy with little fumbari) blade. as i understand it, the signature if real would be from the 2nd generation kanemichi meaning some 200 years earlier. so, was this signed by the shinshinto smith, signed by someone else later, and/or was the blade a copy of a real kanemichi? so many possibilities! thanks joe

more pictures... unfortunately not very good ones...

now that i've had a little time to search this site for more info, i was intrigued by this post: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2063&hilit=kinmichi+yondai almost the same kanji (except the penultimate character on the ura side). and there is this post, which was posted last year by the seller of the sword in question that i have now acquired (though the photos links are no longer operative). so, it looks like you've already chimed in on this blade, and the seller accurately represented what he determined here already. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2161&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=kinmichi i am just a very beginning nihontophile, but the rust pattern on the nakago did strike me as odd. anyone care to make any final comments? i can post more pictures when the blade is in my hands if that would be helpful.

ah, i see. that one is right in nagayama on p. 235. very interesting, though as i said i'm told this is probably a forged signature and the kiku mon has some atypical features. also, there is mune yaki, which is not tolerated by kanemichi. any opinions on the mei (forged)?

please forgive my newbie status. what does that mean in english? i assume something like made by kanemichi, and the date on the ura side? so, it does suggest the kanemichi of the mishina school... interesting.

I am in the process of acquiring this, my first nihonto. The seller directed me here to search for more information -- rumor has it this is a shinshinto blade, signed kanemichi but probably a fake signature. Any help with translation and/or kantei would be appreciated. sorry, these are the best pictures i have at the moment thanks