KKC

The letters/numbers etched into the fuchi are a bright brass color while the surface has a red tint in places, but is it a single solid piece of brass. The camera angle and lighting make the tinted area to appear as a second metal piece. I hadn't seen that before. The clip hole is so thin at one point, if you zoom in, you'll see the crack/break point. Some type of modification or repair was done. The estimate of being made in 1942 is helpful. The larger Japanese army units on Guam in 1944, deployed to the island from China. I'm not sure it they went back to the homeland, but I will now look into units that formed and deployed in the 1942/43 time frame. Again, thank you for the observations.

I really appreciate the insights and comments. The wealth of knowledge on this site in truly impressive. Thank you very much.

This is my uncle's sword taken from somewhere on Guam in 1944. My research is at the point of translating the sword's symbols and engravings, in an attempt to match them with information from the Japanese order of battle in 1944, with a hope of determining the sword's past military unit. All stamped parts are the number "25", to include the very top of the wood insert. Please accept my apologies if the parts are incorrectly named or spelled. Is there significance to the number 25...perhaps a year of origin? Picture 8 is different and seems to be marked with Roman numbers or letters. Could this possible indicate a unit designation? I have attempted to translate the mei but my hand drawn notes are in pdf format that I need to convert to photos and attach. Information from your site appears to show other swords with similar characters...the first character as 'No', second possibly 'Ne something', then maybe a partial name in the middle 'In(oue?)' and the last character as 'Saku'. I thank you ahead of time for any assistance. Kevin Mei top section with arsenal stamp.pdf