Updowncakes

I got a picture of the nakago. I tried getting it all the way to the machi with the habaki removed but I couldn't easily get the habaki off so I didn't want to force it. I also noticed there appears to be some ink or writing on the end of the tsuka. It's really hard to make out so I tried to take some various exposures and stack them. One is Gemini trying to stack them (so take it with a grain of salt, it could have dropped or added parts, but it doesn't look like it did anything too crazy that wasn't there) Another is a python script trying to stack and do some photometry on them. I didn't nail focus and my tripod moved a tiny but so it's not perfect. https://ibb.co/album/ckKXCH Thank you so much for all the information you've provided already though! Chris J

That's so much more detail than I was even expecting. Thank you so much!

Up front: this is a family piece and it is not for sale. Nothing from this thread will be used in a listing or for any commercial purpose. This is a follow-up to my translation thread rather than a cross-post — different question, and I'm posting it here because it belongs here: The mei was read there as 永延三年二月日 / 友成 and called gimei. My thanks to YourBabyBjornBorg for that — it's a clear answer and I'm not looking to relitigate it. What I'd like to know is what the blade is once the signature is set aside. Measurements (taken by hand, please correct my method if any of these are clearly wrong) - Nagasa: 55.2 cm - Sori: 16 mm - Kasane at base: 5.9 mm - Motohaba at base: 27.9 mm - Nakago: 16.2 cm, two mekugi-ana - Mune: peaked, two facets - No stamps anywhere on blade or nakago CONDITION Out of polish. Someone worked the ji with abrasives at some point well before my time. I have no plans to polish it, and I haven't cleaned or oiled the nakago. What I'm hoping to learn: 1. Anything the sugata and what's visible of the hamon suggest about period and tradition. 2. Whether the nakago has been shortened. Two mekugi-ana and what looks to me like a longish tang for the blade length made me wonder about machi-okuri, but I don't know how to read that. 3. Whether the koshirae is likely original to the blade. There's a tsuka with same and black ito, an iron sukashi tsuba with sekigane in the nakago-ana, and a brass habaki with diagonal file marks. I'll post a shot of the tsuka mounted so you can see which hole the mekugi passes through. 4. Whether the orange on the nakago is active rust or stable patina. Currently storing it dry with silica gel and leaving it alone. Photos: Original Album: https://ibb.co/album/n6Kd5b Some additional images: https://ibb.co/album/vsgS7k Provenance is a 1945 bring-back. My grandfather's unit was redeployed from Europe toward the Pacific and Japan surrendered while they were en route; the family account is that swords were handed out to the men. No documentation. The writeup was assisted by AI. All measurements are my own, taken by hand off the actual blade. Thank you so much for any assistance you can provide. Chris J

Awesome! Thank you so much! So, a faked name and date on it, but it's still a better story than my dad and grandfather thinking it was some mass-produced sword.

It looks like sometimes it'll open for even me, sometimes it won't, and there's also a really big list of countries that outright block imgur now. Trying something else. Sorry for all the issues. Trying again on imgbb https://ibb.co/album/n6Kd5b

Sorry it's been quite a while since I've used Imgur! I should have checked it. This one should work: https://imgur.com/gallery/wakizashi-translation-help-J7XyTvA

I'll preface this by saying this whole writeup was helped along by Claude, but all the measurements were done by me by hand, not some guesses based on pictures or anything like that. Also I think it put in way too much context, I am only looking for translation help first and then I'll go over to the other threads to settle the rest of the information about the sword, unless anyone is willing to help here. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. This came down through my family. My grandfather served in WWII and brought it home. The family account is that he was told it was surplus that had never seen combat. I have no documentation beyond that story. I'm hoping for help reading the signature. I'm not asking for a valuation, and I understand the blade is out of polish — I'm not planning to touch it myself, and I haven't cleaned the nakago. MEASUREMENTS (please tell me if I've measured any of these the wrong way) - Nagasa: 55.2 cm / 21.75" - Sori: 16 mm — measured as the straight-line gap from a taut string run tip to munemachi - Kasane at base: 5.9 mm - Motohaba at base: 27.9 mm - Nakago length: 16.2 cm / 6-3/8" - Mune: peaked, two facets - Two mekugi-ana - No stamps of any kind that I can find anywhere on the blade or nakago What I can see, with the caveat that this is all AI-determined. - There is a visible hamon. To my untrained eye it reads as irregular and wavy rather than straight, and something appears to continue up into the kissaki — but I'd rather have someone who knows tell me what it actually is than name it wrong myself. - There is a yokote. - The tsuba is iron, round, openwork. There is soft yellow metal packed into the nakago-ana, which I believe is sekigane. - The habaki is brass with diagonal file marks. - Someone has polished this at some point. There's cross-hatch scratching in the ji. I don't know when or by whom — it predates my having it. THE MEI Seven characters on one side, two on the other. Both faces are heavily corroded. I couldn't get a usable pencil rubbing, so I photographed the nakago and traced only the strokes I could confirm across multiple angles. Tracings are attached alongside the photos. Seven-character side — my tentative read is 永 [?] 五 年 二 月 日. I'm reasonably comfortable with all of it except character 2. Character 2 looks to me like it might carry a 廴 radical, which would give 延 — but as far as I can tell 永延 only ran 987–989, so there was no year 5 and that can't be right. Could it be 正 or 禄? Or something I haven't considered at all? Two-character side — much less confident. The lower character might be 成. The upper one I can't call. Full disclosure: those tentative kanji readings came from working through it with an AI, not from any expertise of my own. I'm flagging it so nobody treats them as informed guesses — please throw them out entirely if they're pointing the wrong way. I'm putting many of these in an imgur album since I can only attach very small files here. Hopefully that's okay. Edit: Working Imgur gallery: https://imgur.com/gallery/wakizashi-translation-help-J7XyTvA 1. Nakago, seven-character side 2. Nakago, two-character side 3. Tracing, seven-character side 4. Tracing, two-character side - this is actually the last image, had to re-upload. 5. Full blade 6. Hamon, close-up 7. Kissaki 8. Tsuba, face 9. Tsuba, showing the fill in the nakago-ana Again thank you for any help you can provide.