removed gaku mei

[fan]

hi guys,

i went to a gun show today and looked at a few swords that they had there. none are in great shape but one let me with a question. a katana with a removed gaku mei. would it be safe to assume that the sword may be of value? the reason i ask is that if someone bothered to remove the folded tab with the mei, could it be assumed to be genuine and removed to another sword for value enhancement? on the other hand if a sword with a gaku mei is found to be gimei, how would the removal of the mei be handled if the owner decided to go that route? would the tab be simply snipped off?

eric

[Stephen]

Thats intersting as i just sent a sword for poish that had a snipped nakago...did the one at the show have some gaku left on? my theory of why mine was cut was that some GI was told to remove the mei like many of the mums were on the rifles that were brought back. I cant wait to see what the NBTHK has to say about it. here are a few pix ...was the end of that one finished off? or left ruff like this?

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Another very interesting subject.

I've seen Gakumei removed from doomed blade to enhance healty ones,

but never an healty blade mutilated this way.

The old tales about Muramasa and Tokugawa's bans about his works comes to mind, but seems this is not the case.

Seems not a clean cut. Why the heck such a rip ?

[Stephen]

The only reasion i can see for it being done this way, as no togi would do that, is that a GI coming home was told to cut off the name...who knows for sure... im having it finished off with my togi now. here is another shot of the bellowing choji hamon which i think is Bizen well see after polish.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

The only reasion i can see for it being done this way, as no togi would do that, is that a GI coming home was told to cut off the name...who knows for sure... im having it finished off with my togi now. here is another shot of the bellowing choji hamon which i think is Bizen well see after polish.

 

The hypotesis matches with the way it has been removed.

You can figure out how much the Nakago has been shortened ?

[Brian]

Many swords that came home from WW2 were roughly shortened for the simple fact that they were too long to fit in the duffel bag or trunk that it was shipped in.

I have seen a few that were filed partly, and then snapped off in the nakago purely for this reason.

Some didn't have the necessary war souvenir paperwork, so were "smuggled back" and if they didn't fit in the desired shipping container..then the shortening was done.

Often they were stripped of mounts and these were shipped separately.

Not sure if this is the case here, but it is always a possibility?

 

Brian

[fan]

hi stephen,

the end of the nakago on the sword i saw was even uglier than yours. it looks like some pryed the tab that was folded and inserted into the nakago out and snipped it. what was left is about 3mm worth of the tab in a half uncured condition.

eric

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Many swords that came home from WW2 were roughly shortened for the simple fact that they were too long to fit in the duffel bag or trunk that it was shipped in.

 

This makes a lot of sense.

[Stephen]

hi stephen,

what was left is about 3mm worth of the tab in a half uncured condition.

eric

 

Thats just plane ugly. was the rest of the sword in fair condition?

[fan]

yes, the rest of the sword seemed to be relatively healthy with plenty of niku. nice sugata and a bit of an extended kissaki.

eric