Jcstroud

Hey Bruce I am gonna make your day! Komiyama Yoshishige shares the same name as the temple at Tenshozan Tanrenjo the priests name was Kamita Yoshitada 3rd gen.

Do you know where it was made? What forge or workshop?

Well the search continues....If anyone wishes to help I would be glad to recieve any help I can get to find out more about who was Toyosuke very thankful for all the help so far. John

In my opinion you should try to contact Mr. Malcolm Cox as he has more info on " the Inaba group" than any other person I know. Nice find! Definitely hard to sort them out.

Now on a more positive note...lets consider the high level of talent of all the swordsmiths associated with Tenshozan Tanrenjo for example : Fujiwara Kanenaga ,Kawamura Hiroshi his son,Enamoto Sadayoshi of the Gassan School,Kazuichi Masahiro,and many more... who in their right mind would not want one of these works of excellence?

Not only how but when.the moment I think I have found the answer I have only found another question. Ahhhhh the futility of it all...🤗

I am not sure if you are aware that on August7th 1945 Toyo kawa Arsenal was destroyed by reportedly 813 tons of 500 lb. bombs now I did not want to bring it up as a matter of respect butI think it would be unlikely for them to be built there. Secondly for them to be stamped that would make them illegal in Japan and unsellable there not to mention unwanted as well to this very day.

One curious thing that many seem to miss is that every "souvenir sword " found to date has a Toyokawa stamp of one form or another yet they were Manufactured or produced at Tenshozan???when Toyokawa no longer existed.???????

What about those that had mei and were kiri or cut off.? Yeah I know picky,picky,picky

There is another possibility only a theory: if surplus gathered swords from toyokawa collected after the bombing were used perhaps they applied a "memorial name" to the swords to commemorate the lost helpers of Toyokawa who were "cut off" as were the nakagos. Yeah I know a far fetched theory but they deserve to be remembered.Like you said Bruce why sign it at all?.....truly another mystery.

The seppa appear to have been bondo filled maybe to cover mis-matched assembly numbers. Not meaning to be critical only observant. Pardon

The best answer I can give you is that the decision to authorize purchase of the remaining 6097 swords " was based on the premise "that The swords were made after the wars end.it did not guarantee it.

I think both is the right answer. It is logical because certainly Tenshozan would have never been able to offer acontract if they had no inventory to start with. The question is how many were from stockpiles?

Were antirust swords frowned apon because they were not traditionally made? It seems as if Tenshozan had lots of unsold stainless at the end of the war? Does anyone know?

Very true but not postwar

That equates to 546 a month!

The "gunto network" of Zenhiro Hattori was far reaching he outsourced ,and collected under contract as you know swords from multiple locations.many blades that were stamped with the toyokawa stamp were not made at the Arsenal I have read that around 70% were sourced from Seki.Determining the source as you know can be an exercise in futility to say the least. considering all we now know about Tenshozan's production They obtained 8747 swords in only16 months that requires outsourcing .

Yes they seem to be different probably from different shops.

To compare I think the 4 is different

Appears to be the same stamp what do you think?

Does it have any stamped nunbers or modified roman numerals? would like to see them to compare.likely they were working in lots of 100 maybe.

After much research this is what I have found: Inaba Kanetoshi was a student of Watanabe Kanenaga as was his younger brother Matsubara Shozo they both used the swordname Inaba according to Malcolm Cox's pdf.Matsubara Shozo was Kaigun Jumei Tosho making swords for Toyokawa his brother an rjt smith for the IJA .his last address was kisogawa-cho haguri-gun in aichi-ken which is close to inaba-cho.! he also used the same filemark pattern as his teacher Watanabe Kanenaga it is a possibility that he also signed as Toyosuke.

I had one just like before it got confiscated looks legitimate to me they made those starting in the 1880 s

Hey Bruce does that include souvenir swords as well since they also are "tenshozan collected and toyokawa approved?

Reminds me of work: If it aint broke dont fix it!