SOMETHING NEW IN GUNTO?

[Grey Doffin]

Hi guys,

This just showed up on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-SWORD-GENERALS-SWORD-GENERAL-TASSEL-FITTINGS-TSUBA-/330832596780?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d0728cf2c

 

I've never seen anything like this: stainless blade?, very unusually wide hi, cosmetic hamon. Any idea what it is?

Grey

[Stephen]

Looks all REPO to me

[george trotter]

This is of interest to collectors of militaria only IMHO.

Nice clean set of special order fittings with mon and tassel...blade is of no consequence as a nihonto item.

I once saw a similar very high quality gunto given to an Australian official at the war crime trials in Tokyo after the war...it had the same chrome parade blade in it.

Thanks for posting.

[falconj]

Hi George,

Yes, lovely clean fittings, but what do you make of the 'mon'

photo is a bit fuzzy, but maybe some variant on the 'tomoe'??

regards to all

John

[Dr Fox]

The Mon! if I am right is for the Kuribayashi family.

There is a fascinating link here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadamichi_Kuribayashi

Was this the owner of this sword?

 

Denis.

[george trotter]

Hi John...it looks like three commas (Mitsu Tomoe) over the water. In this case the commas replaces the more usual navy insignia of Kiku over the water...not sure who it was originally as my mon book does not show this water variation...

Regards,

PS...it is always possible that this sword and the one I mentioned has had its original blade removed and a "dummy" zinc blade put in before presenting it to the occupying powers for bestowal as a gift to some Occupation official etc...just thinking...I can't imagine a Japanese officer carrying such a blade.

[falconj]

George san,

you may be right,

( PS...it is always possible that this sword and the one I mentioned has had its original blade removed and a "dummy" zinc blade put in before presenting it to the occupying powers for bestowal as a gift to some Occupation official etc...just thinking...I can't imagine a Japanese officer carrying such a blade. )

I do remember reading about this in maybe 'shokan' or some book similar , that if time permitted the person surrendering the blade would swap his family treasure blade for what ever was available to avoid losing their treasure, but I often wondered if they kept the good blade, how did they smuggle it home on repatriation?? or maybe bury it?? hide it, somewhere, hoping to return??? someday?

regards

John

[cabowen]

that if time permitted the person surrendering the blade would swap his family treasure blade for what ever was available to avoid losing their treasure, but I often wondered if they kept the good blade, how did they smuggle it home on repatriation?? or maybe bury it?? hide it, somewhere, hoping to return??? someday?

regards

John

 

Not likely this was a normal or common occurrence, if it happened at all...I have heard that sometimes upper ranking officers had more than one sword with them and that they would keep the "good" one and surrender a lessor one.

[Kai-Gunto]

This could be a generals parade dress sword.

[george trotter]

Two points...

1. I think some blades were swapped out of good fittings and replaced with zinc parade blades before surrender to the occupying forces.

That is, this was not done in the field in the hope of someday retrieving the good blade, but done in Japan itself.

I think the example on ebay may be one of these. The westerners who came after have assumed it was "captured in the field" rather than acquired in post-war Japan.

 

2. There are a number of accounts of Japanese high rank officers surrendering several swords at surrender ceremonies in liberated countries in 1945.

I myself acquired a sword from the brother of an Australian soldier who was at a surrender ceremony in Borneo in 1945. The blade was almost mint...by Mitsuhira (Tokuno 1980 p.610, 6 mil yen). It was in very good buke-zukuri koshirae and in a brocade bag with the officers swagger stick.

So yes, officers who were able to took their favourite blade/s to the front, and yes, junk blades do appear in excellent fittings, but only in gift/confiscated swords from within post-surrender Japan IMHO.

Regards,

[estcrh]

Well someone thought it was worth $4,500.00

[sanjuro]

Since this is way up there with a really excellent gunto level of price, methinks the buyer was dazzled by the koshirae and knew nothing of blades. If so, he's in for a really nasty shock.

$4500 is a lot to pay for what is essentially either a wallhanger or a clean koshirae.

Of course it could also be that the seller ran up the price on a phoney bid in order to establish a starting point for the relisting when he states he had a non paying buyer. Or am I just being a cynic?????.

[cabowen]

Apparently the market for gunto is starting to come into its own.....Guess I shouldn't have thrown or given away those piles of gunto koshirae years ago.

[Grey Doffin]

If that is a legitimate General's tassel more than half the current bid is justified by the tassel alone.

Grey