Help With Sukemune Ura (Date) Translation

[Ron STL]

Photos show rough rubbings made of the mei from a friend's yari signed SUKEMUNE SAKU. I've enlarged it to help in seeing the kanji. I see the date KAEI 3 (1850) followed by (?) and NEN 7TH MONTH 6TH DAY followed by four unidentified kanji. One of those is KATSU but I can't connect these to understand what's there. Asking a lot from a poor rubbing but maybe one of you can complete the date side translation. Spent quite a while on this without success. My friend who owns the yari figured out the 1850 date but insists the nakago is much older, but I suspect that is the result of not being kept very well. Help would be appreciated very much. Ron STL

[John A Stuart]

Hard to read. Could the last three kanji be 前勝透 '...before victory is clear'??

[SteveM]

嘉永五壬子年

 

I am thinking the final part is a name　囗前勝透　?-mae Katsuyuki

[Ron STL]

Hmmm, interesting suggestions. I can see on the date where the year would be GO and not SAN but I'm not so sure what follows is as Steve suggested. And as for the last four kanji, I can see this perhaps being a name but can't see why a name would follow the date. Something like what John suggested would seem to make more sense, sort of like one would find on a shinshinto yari or sword. I sure wish my friend who owns this would find a good camera (or cell phone) to take a good picture of this thing. He should go ask the teenager next door to take care of this; I'll have to suggest that. Meanwhile, it is interesting to learn what others "see" in the inscription. The sort of thing that makes us look closely at what's on a nakago and find it interesting to understand it. Been doing that for sixty years! Ron STL

[SteveM]

壬子 (Mizunoe-ne) is the zodiac year, and in this case it verifies the date of Kaei 5. It is common for the zodiac year to follow the nengo date. So if the two kanji following the nengo date look like a zodiac year, and if it looks like a zodiac year that corresponds to the nengo year, you can be confident that the two confirm each other.

In your friend's yari, the 子 looks a bit like 序 due to the slanting horizontal line on the left, but I'm sure this is an effect of the metal or the rubbing, and is not part of the kanji