Gendaito with seki Stamp

[Vagabond]

Hello there,

I saw some old post regarding this matter.  I have this katana that a recognized togishi told me to be a gendaito, no matter the stamp.  At firs I thoght to be a showato, but he says it is a gendaito.  What do you think of this blade?

It has the seki stamp, Moreover it has an own fuchi.

This is the story of the sword, and it was told me after one year I had had the sword so there were no reasons to not be  the true.

"The Katana was taken off of a surrendering Japanese officer who later killed himself (hari-Kari) on March 5th,1945 by Earl Nicholson of the 27th marines,1st battallion"

 

Signature should be  Sanjo Yoshikane

 

thanks in advance for your comments. 

 

 

[Vagabond]

[Vagabond]

[Vagabond]

[Vagabond]

[Vagabond]

[PNSSHOGUN]

The dark area in the peak of the Hamon are classic signs of oil tempering which means it is not Gendaito.

[Bruce Pennington]

Rafaelle,

First - Thanks for sharing that sword!!!  Wow, how cool to have custom koiguchi!

 

This is an important discussion at the moment (to me).  For a LONG TIME it has been told, like an oral history, that there was a law established in the mid/late 1930's to required stamping of non-traditionally made blades.  Currently, no such law has been found.  Rather, what is known, and published, is from the Seki City website (thanks to Nick Komiya at Warrelics).  It talks of the sword history of the city and says that in the 1930s, due to the Shanghai incident, and ramping up of military actions in China, the sword industry had to drastically increase their sword production.  In the process of innovation, the industry started making sword industrially, non-traditionally.  But local producers began to be bothered by low-quality "showato."  They got the Seki Cutlery Manufacturers Association to inspect blades and stamp them to show that the blades (showato) passed quality inspections.  This stamping began as early as 1935 and ran until the Army took national control of sword production in late 1941- early 1942.

 

Half of all surveyed blades are not stamped (Seki swordsmiths produced 70% of all war blades.  Let that math fry your brain!).  Surveyed, and dated, blades with stamps, show the Showa stamp as the earliest known stamp (1935).  Observed Seki-stamped blades begin in 1940, but over half of the Seki-stamped blades are not dated.  So it is POSSIBLE that it ran concurrently with the Showa stamp.  But we don't know.

 

This is taking a long time to say that we believe the Seki stamp (and Showa) were being used by the Seki Cutlery Manufacturers Assoc. to stamp SHOWATO of good quality.  In my survey, the Seki stamped blades almost always appear to be nihonto/gendaito.  My personal opinion is that there were a mix that were either: 1. made in the traditional manner, yet used non-tamahagane, 2. made in the traditional way, but oil quenched; or 3. made non-traditionally in several ways, but were really good quality.

 

The bottom line is that we just don't have documentation to prove anything yet.

 

I discuss this all little more in depth in the Stamps of the Japanese Sword.

[16k]

When I look at the Hamon, I see dark spots near the togari. This is usually a telltale sign of an oil quenched blade. That and the lack of activities make me thing this is indeed a Showato.

 

That said, I think, indeed , as Bruce says, that there were several grades of Showato made during WW2. I have one that is obviously badly finished, almost rushed, mumei. Another of mine is on the contrary very well finished with a Hamon like yours and I would definitely trust it during combat (the other too, of course, but more as a bludgeon than a sword!  )