Date Translation And Armory Stamp Question (Gunto)

[messedupmojo]

Hi

 

Some of you kindly translated the signature on my gunto and we got to 包永　Kanenaga 

 

I'm trying to further research this smith as there appears to be a couple of that name operating in the Showa period - to help i thought it would be an idea to get a better idea of date or province the blade was made

 

I've tried to clean up the photograph the best i can as the blade is pretty rusty - but apparently a blue filter in lightroom works wonders (albeit still a little rusty in the middle)

 

at the bottom the last 3 kanji are 1, 10, month (11th month?)

 

Above that (4th figure from bottom) is it the Kanji for Year? - it looks a little more curvy than the way Kanji for year is written on my fonts

 

At the top is it just the first figure that says Showa or is this also continued to the second figure down - i can see three clear apostrophe type strikes that dont fit with this?

 

It then looks like a 10 and 6 before what i think is the kanji for year ( i may be way off)

 but would it be a huge leap to say this say 16th year of showa which would put it at 1942 

 

Finally - i had a question about an Arsenal stamp - which i'm 90% certain isn't there - should all non traditional blades (of which i'm sure this is) have had some kind of stamp?

 

As always many thanks for thoughts, opinions and your time in answering my questions

 

 

[Shugyosha]

Hi, sorry I can't see your real name and it feels a bit odd to use your NMB handle...

 

I think that the era is Showa: the kanji are both quite stylised but there is a nakirishimei (cut by someone employed to carve signatures) on page 57 of Slough's Oshigata Book of Modern Japanese Swordsmiths that looks very similar (sorry you'll have to take my word for it as I can't scan it but maybe someone else can help).

 

As to the year, 16th year would make it 1941 so not implausible, but your guess is as good as mine with this part. You are right on the 11th month.

 

If there is some kind of stamp on the tang, it is normally on the same side as the signature, above the mekugi ana. They aren't normally all that deep though and it could easily be rusted over.

 

Here are details of a couple of wartime swordsmiths signing this way, I think the first one is the better bet as he sometimes signed nijimei. This is from Markus Sesko's Swordsmiths of Japan:

 

KANENAGA (包永), Shōwa (昭和, 1926-1989), Gifu – “Nōshū Seki no jū Kanenaga kore o saku” (濃州関之住包永作之), “Kanenaga” (包永), real name Amachi Ginjirō (天地銀次郎), older brother of Amachi Suzuichi (天地鈴市), he was born on the fourth day of the ninth month Meiji 17 (1884) and died March 8th 1958, he worked as guntō smith, posthumous Buddhist name Enkaku Chikyō (円覚智鏡)

 

KANENAGA (包永), Shōwa (昭和, 1926-1989), Nara – “Kikuichi Monju Shirō Kanenaga” (菊一文珠四郎包永), “Kikuichi Monju saku” (菊一文珠作)

 

Kind regards,

John

[messedupmojo]

John

 

Thanks for the information 

 

Kind regards

David (sorry i should have put that before!)

[messedupmojo]

John

 

On the first smith you mention - from Gifu province, you've used the same Kanji as me 包永    for Kanenaga ( i assume this is the way its written in Markus Sesko's Swordsmiths of Japan ) - but on Nihonto club (and some other signatures i've seen for Kanenaga in general) the Kanji is 兼永 for Kanenaga so i had almost discounted him - when you say he signed nijimei  does this mean he signed with only two characters on some - is the way he signed Kane 包 or 兼 likely to have changed between the two?

 

Many thanks

David

[Shugyosha]

Hi David,

 

Sorry, nijimei does indeed mean written with two characters.

 

The text from Markus Sesko's book was a copy and paste. Both kanji are read "kane" - the story goes that way back in the 12th century or thereabouts, a swordsmith, the son of Tegai Kanenaga moved from Yamato province to Mino province and to mark this he swapped from this kane 包 which was and still is associated with swordsmiths from Yamato province and which was used by his father, to the other one (兼).

 

Many wartime blades are signed by smiths using the second kanji as Mino (Seki) was an important centre for production during WW2.

 

The two kanji sound exactly the same but they are in fact two different names -  your guy used the first one so I didn't copy across the entries under the second kanji. It's not likely that he used them interchangeably,  but swordsmiths do change their names and the ways in which they write their names, so it's not impossible. However, Markus's book is pretty good and would probably have mentioned the fact.

 

I'm guessing that he most likely chose to write his name this to differentiate himself from those other smiths or maybe just because he felt some connection to the Yamato Tegai school.

 

Best,

John

[messedupmojo]

John

 

Many thanks for the clarification - in the interim i'd got a copy of the book and came to the same conclusion Kanenaga兼永 from Gifu appears to quite an important WW2 smith - so just wanted to double check it couldn't be him, however as you say its much more likely to be the first smith you mentioned

 

Thanks for all the information, i'm slowly building my knowledge around signatures, kanji, etc - its much appreciated that you and everyone on here shares your time to help me along

 

Kind regards

David

[SwordGuyJoe]

John

 

Many thanks for the clarification - in the interim i'd got a copy of the book and came to the same conclusion Kanenaga兼永 from Gifu appears to quite an important WW2 smith - so just wanted to double check it couldn't be him, however as you say its much more likely to be the first smith you mentioned

 

Thanks for all the information, i'm slowly building my knowledge around signatures, kanji, etc - its much appreciated that you and everyone on here shares your time to help me along

 

Kind regards

 

David

This is not watanabe kanenaga.