Conway S

I was just referencing what’s posted above. Maybe a mistake in your chart if you don’t have a picture recorded.

I’m in the same boat with you. I know some people here feel a gunto is incomplete without the tassel or knot, but I try to avoid purchasing these unless I find them in-person. It's hard to shop for tassels by pictures alone.

Ah you’re right! The top stroke would be shorter than the bottom if it was a two. Good catch. Looks like there are consecutive numbers recorded now (セ1143 and 1144).

@Bruce Pennington Here’s another Spring 1944: セ 一一四三 that’s not listed in your table. Maybe you haven’t seen this one yet sold Here

The mei looks like it was done with an electric engraving tool. Just look at how many small strokes there are in each character. I believe whoever made this was trying to pass this work off as one by a well known Edo period smith - Kunikiyo.

Here’s another example. Spring 1944 with ren stamp 連 and serial セ se 一四一三： It’s in overall excellent condition.

35” is quite long for a non-dress blade in kyu gunto mounts. Looks to be in nice condition too. A good find!

@Nobody Thank you very much, Moriyama san.

Greetings, I picked up a sword with a return tag and I am having a little trouble with the full translation. The characters are carved into the leather. So far, I’ve got 堀内吾郎, as a name- Horiuchi Goro on the far left hand column with the bottom 所有 (property). I can also tell that right hand column is referencing a city/capital. Second column from right - 4th district, 16th house. Any help with the right hand column and correct pronunciation of the owner’s name would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Con

Hi Frank, This smith is Akiyoshi. This sword was posted on NMB previously:

Well I'm glad I stumbled across that eBay listing. I learned something new and It’s cool to uncover details about these more obscure smiths.

I’m quite confident the stamp is on the same sword. I have a Shigenaga in my collection, and the seller mentions the stamp in the description. I saw your Amahide in another thread. It looks quite nice and it’s cool that your father brought it home.

@John C In the article linked above, Mal Cox writes that there were 16 smiths listed as part of the Seki Nihonto Tanren Jo in 1942. Only three of those being well recorded.

Thanks for the second opinion, John. Since this was only the third time I have seen this stamped mei, I was skeptical seeing this one coming from Komonjo. I also found this example of another stamped mei - 金丸（Kanemura) on an Amahide : Maybe these are some of the other smiths working from Amahide’s workshop.