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Sword maker verify please


rickyfig4

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I have a Japanese WWII army/tank crew katana with a 1550 era made blade o-suriage. The scabbard is leather covered and has some writing under the leather strap, with a tremendous amount of help i was able to identify that it states the maker is 備前助 or

 
備州長船助宗作
bishū osafune sukemune saku
(SUK279)
 
Seller stated "its Shinogi-zukuri shape, the temper line is wavy gunome temper pattern through out the blade and has deep temper at the point. The forging grain is itame-hada. it measures 23+3/8" cutting edge, 1+1/16" width, 5mm thickness at the notch and 34+3/4" in mountings."
 
Can someone identify that it is indeed from this smith or maybe someone else

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Dear Edgar.

 

The short answer is, "No!"  No one is going to be able to confirm the maker of this sword.  What you have is an out of polish, suriage sword.  From what we can see it has a midare komi boshi and given the overall shape it might be Muromachi period.  From the kurikata on the saya we can assume that it was a civil sword converted for WWII.  After that we are working solely on what we think the writing on the combat cover might say.  Not many swords have information written on the combat cover.

 

If you really want to know then you are going to have to send it to Japan for a proper polish and submit it for papers, all of which is going to cost a lot of money and is probably not worth it in financial terms.

 

What you have is a genuine samurai sword that was carried in WWII and might be several hundred years old.  That's a piece of history and worth preserving with care.  Enjoy it and enjoy researching Sukemune.

 

All the best.

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Just to refine some terms, there are many discussion debunking the "tanker/pilot" sword term.  The shorter blades are simply wakizashi, the shorter of the 2 swords carried by the samurai.  These family heirlooms were brought to the war, some donated, some outright bought by the army, and re-fitted for combat.  Many pilots and tank crew are in photos with full katana-length swords, and many infantry are in photos carrying a waki.

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The sword hints at having some interesting activities, but the last "polish" seems to have blurred the geometry somewhat, and the finish is not clear enough to reveal its full possibilities. In proper polish, I suspect it will be an interesting sword, though whether that is economically feasible depends on one's own definition.

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Its my first Katana, so spending the extra money to have it professionally polished wouldn't be a problem fro me. Even if its not financially smart, its my first and carries more meaning to me.

I do wonder though after the polish how much it would be to get it professionally inspected to verify the smith.

 

Thank you for the help everyone, I was hoping someone on here was familiar with the smiths work and could see if I was in the right direction

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The majority of the work from the Shinto to the Gendai period can't be nailed down to a specific smiths with any reasonable certainty due to the lack of characteristic features. Often the best you can hope for is a school, and even then - the waters quickly become murky. Attribution is likely to just be a statement on quality and not much else in the end. 

 

Post unification, the centralisation of the steel production and the spread of Mino as the school to rule them all, swords started to look much more alike than they did in the good ol' Koto days. 

 

Obvious exceptions do apply as usual, but its a good rule of thumb. 

 

 

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