Showato

Thank you very much for the further information.

I sincerely thank you for the prompt translation. Would it be normal not to have the date? There are no other stamped markings on the nakago at all on either side. I examined the suspicious looking rust spot near the bottom under the other letters with a magnifying glass, but there is no sign of any sharp indentations , just rust pitting

Hello, fascinating site you have here! I have identified the "Seki" mark, so presumably this is a Showato type 98 officer's sword? Unfortunately, way before the internet was invented, the handle was unwrapped, and at the time there was a clumsy attempt made to match it back to it's original style. So I believe this binding pattern should be the "Hirawara" cross pattern (cord was never twisted over itself like other styles). Would that particularly identify the sword as a naval sword then, rather than an army sword? Unfortunately the coloured tassels etc are lost to history. Looking for help in translating characters on tang. I am finding it very difficult to match up the stamping with any Kanji characters at all. However, the last character appears to be "作" ("Saku") at least , but as you can see it is very spread out in the stamping. The first two characters were slightly obsured with rust but I have cleaned them up a bit and also tried putting some chalk into lettering to enhance them better as well. Looking forward to comments/opinions on this item. Regards Graeme