Attention Mantetsu Owners: A Survey

[Conway S]

Posting this recent acquisition. It's dated Spring 1939 with katakana "ro" 口 233. It was hard to get a good picture of the mune due to it being a little rusty. Based on Bruce's Iroha chart, I believe this would be from the second series. Please correct me if that is incorrect. 

 

The sword has early features such as the center chuso release, thick pierced tsuba, copper rain pattern habaki, and hands clasped sarute. The tsuka also has metal shims for added durability.

 

Conway 

 

[Conway S]

A few more pictures:

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Nice one, Conway!  I bet it's heavy!

 

As to it's place in the series, it's hard to say exactly.  '39 was the year of overlap as they finished out the English lettering N-Z (we only have examples of N, O, V, and W) and began using IROHOA.  All the Alpha/numerics for '39 were "Spring" and the IROHA started with Spring, so either they finished the Alpha/numberics before staring IROHA or they ran the two numbering system simultaneiously.

 

1939	--	--	--	--	--	N-423春 N-574春 N-597春 O-4春	--	V-18春 V-33春	W-23春 W-38春 W-82春	--	None春
I イ(イ) i 　い Ro ロ Ha ハ											Alpha Numeric Missing Kanji
1939 I イ RO ロ HA ハ NI ニ HO ホ	I 132-S I 169-S I 376-S I 466-S	RO 69-S RO 75-S RO 233S RO 270S RO 381S RO 446S	HA 24-A HA 35-A	NI 53-A NI 57-A NI 190-A NI 375-A NI 422-A NI 539-A Ni 657-A NI 679-W Ni 733-A	HO 113-W HO 122-W HO 123-W HO 125-W HO 168-W HO 171-W HO 213-W						NoNmr-W

[Kotetsu1959]

Bruce,     You have that B series in naval mounts that I sent pictures of. Does that fall in 1939 according to your research?

 

      

[Conway S]

Ray, the chart shows that N-Z are 1939 series. Your sword is still 1938. Bruce mentions the B and C series being 1938 on Page 37 of this thread (April 8th).