xiayang

Most of this is beyond my reading skills, but the characters in the leftmost column in the first and fourth images are a name: 山田耕三郎 (Yamada Kōzaburō, probably this guy).

酒向兼茂作 = made by Sakō Kaneshige

法师/法師 is a Buddhist monk title (cf. Dharmabhāṇaka)

義次 = Yoshitsugu 昭和十九年十月 = October of Shōwa 19 (1944 CE)

Well, I suppose it does try to say 本間 雅晴 將官 = General Masaharu Homma but this was evidently written by a 4-year old.

I believe it says: 嶽家劍法 (something like "Yue family sword fighting style"), where Yue refers to the Chinese Song dynasty general Yue Fei (嶽飛) who was known for his martial prowess.

土州住伊藤英吉造 = Tosa-jū Itō Hideyoshi tsukuru 文化十年二月日 = on a day in the second month of Bunka 10 (1813 CE)

越前住 = Echizen-jū 伯耆守藤[原] ... = Hōki no Kami Fuji[wara] ... The smith's name was lost to suriage.

関住川崎兼泉作 = Seki-jū Kawasaki Kanezumi saku Not a lot of information about this smith apart from an old thread here:

It's an old Kōshu Tokubetsu Kicho (甲種特別貴重) paper, more details here. The handwritten part mentions both the katana (刀) and the wakizashi (脇指), with common signatures (銘) of 河内大掾藤原國定 (Kawachi Daijō Fujiwara Kunisada) and lengths (長) of 70.9 cm (二尺三寸四分) and 54.2 cm (一尺七寸九分), respectively.

The first sword does not look Japanese-made to me. The second one is more interesting, but unfortunately the last character is a bit out of focus in your image: 肥州住忠[?] = Hishū-jū Tada[?]

濃州住森俊治作 = Nōshū-jū Mori Toshiharu saku

Second blade: 氏房 = Ujifusa 昭和十六年 = Shōwa 16 (1941 CE) Third blade: 西部宗命 = Seibu Munenaga

Hi Michael, The blade is signed 豊州住藤原正行 = Hōshū-jū Fujiwara Masayuki

Hi Rob, Yep, that's pretty much it. You can find more information about the smith in this thread:

濃州住塚原兼次謹作 = Nōshū-jū Tsukahara Kanetsugu kinsaku

That‘s correct: 豊後住藤原實行 = Bungo-jū Fujiwara Saneyuki

Have a close look at the placement of the mei the proportions of the individual characters the proportions of the characters relative to each other the execution of the characters (e.g., depth, width and shape of strokes) One of them is consistent with a master craftsman putting the final touch on a work of art that took hundreds of hours to create. The other one is sloppily executed with poor calligraphic aesthetics...

皇紀二千六百一年 = year 2601 of the Imperial calendar (1941 CE) 出征詔念應永田千弘代需 = in commemoration of Nagata Chihiro answering the Imperial command to go to war

The mei and nakago look rather dodgy, if you ask me... Compare to these examples of the smith's work: https://kako.nipponto.co.jp/swords2/KT214504.htm https://ikedaart.net/?pid=180628778 https://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/w454764826/

The answer to that question depends on what you mean by gimei in this context. So let's break it down, in order of increasing speculativeness: Was it created in 1919? By shortening an older blade? Was it Hiraga Morikuni who shortened it? Was there an original signature, and was it 安則? If it had indeed been signed 安則, was it actually made by Yasunori of the Ichimonji school, or perhaps by some later smith who used the same characters? I guess it may not be possible to answer all of these questions with certainty, but perhaps you could start with the last point: does the blade actually have the characteristics one would expect from a Kamakura era work by the Ichimonji school? Here's Yasunori's entry in Markus Sesko's Swordsmiths of Japan:

大正[己?]未歲八月 = August of Taishō, year of the [Earth?] Goat (that would correspond to 1919 CE) 平賀守國上之 = shortened by Hiraga Morikuni 古銘 一文安則 = old mei: Ichimon Yasunori

継利以南蠻鐵作 = made by Tsugutoshi using nanban-tetsu

貞繼 = Sadatsugu Probably this entry in Markus Sesko's Swordsmiths of Japan:

The signature appears to be 若狭守源廣政 = Wakasa no Kami Minamoto Hiromasa Whether the blade is restorable at all I cannot say. Probably best to get a polisher to look at it.