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sword in ww2 army fittings interesting character


bearlybeans

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Hello, new member here, frequent lurker. 

I found a fairly nice sword in WW2 army style fittings, and once the handle was off, found this under. '

hIZJAIc.jpg?1

the top character looks like a butterfly to me, being a untrained newbie. 

also i thought the plugged hole with a new drilled hole was interesting. 

Please forgive my ancient camera and poor skills. 

Any thoughts? 

Thanks in advance!

Matt

100_1504.JPG

 

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The "Butterfly" is a "SHO" stamp (for Showa) saying this sword wasn’t Made traditionally. The beginning of the translation is "noshu Seki"  meaning it was forged isn Seki. The rest is too difficult for me but others will help. The sword was made between 1939 and 1941.

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Matt,

welcome to the NMB forums!

What you have there looks like a legit WWII military sword. The SHO stamp above the signature lets me assume this is not traditionally made, so no SAMURAI weapon, but a militaria item. The MEI (signature) seems to read NOSHU SEKI no JU KANEHIRO SAKU.  KANEHIRO would be the name of the worker who made the blade (or whose task it was to sign swords).

Our militaria collectors would certainly like to see the whole blade (without HABAKI).

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Matt,

I assume there's no date on the other side of the nakago (tang)?  If not, the Showa stamp puts your blade in the 1935-1942 range with the greater odds at 1940 as a manufacture date.

 

That's quite a unique style of writing the "hiro"!  He was adding a little artistic flair on that one!

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Hi Matt.

 

You are right, the plugged hole suggests a re mount for the blade. This is quite a common feature for older blades, less so for blades of this period.   If all the hilt fittings and tsuba re present you may find a number stamped on them, if so and the numbers are all the same then I don't think it's anything to worry about.

 

All the best.

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Hi, 

Thank You all for the replies! it's very interesting to be able to nail down a blade to a time period and maker (or signer) on it. 

There is no markings on the other side of the tang, just the file marks done very neatly in a V pattern. i will try to get several more good pictures of the blade and fittings, although they are standard army fittings. The handle is sharkskin or rayskin  under cord wrapping, with the standard flower menuki. No other numbers are present on anything. kind of a oblong solid brass tsuba with no decoration. It has a fine temper line, but there is always a bad, it has a chip out of the blade about 10 inches from the handle attempting to measure it looks to be about 1/8 inch deep and 3/8 inch long sloping up and back down.. kinda like a "gentle hill" rising up and back down.. lol. . Not being a perfectionist it does not bother me much, but i realize it devalues it quite a bit. I believe what I like most about this is it has not been touched, meaning refinished, polished, etc.. just to me it looks to be a good honest example of a wartime carried sword.

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