Help with RJT mei and date, Please

[Bruce Pennington]

Would appreciate help with both sides.  Normally I can see the dates but this one is confusing:

 

[kyushukairu]

Nōshū jū Akinobu (濃州住亮信)

A day in March 1945 (昭和廿年三月日)

 

*Instead of 二十 for 20, they use the old character 廿

[Bruce Pennington]

Thanks Kyle!  That's the 3rd dang time I've forgotten that I knew about that variant of 20!

[Nobody]

The date is 昭和廿年正月日 - Showa 20th year, January.

 

[k morita]

About the mei.

Normal reading of the mei is SUKENOBU (亮信).

[Bugyotsuji]

Thank you.

Re Suke 亮. We know at least two or three other common characters for Suke, i.e. 祐 and 助 and 介 . Perhaps the Kanji used in names link on the site could be updated a little?

[Brian]

Is it just me, or does that mei look freshly cut? Inside of the tagane should match the patina of the rest of the nakago.
I would be very suspicious of gimei/fakery here. Especially with the painted characters on the nakago, usually used on Showato. In fact, how did they paint kanji in black without getting any of the paint inside the mei kanji?
Easy enough to cut a RJT mei onto a Showato.
Just my 2c. What do others think?

[Geraint]

It is difficult to tell but perhaps the mei has been chalked/powdered at some time?

All the best.

[Bruno]

Seki smith?

[Bruce Pennington]

Thanks everyone, fabulous as always!

 

Brian, with a little zoom, you can see the powder here and there outside the kanji. 

 

Richard's Oshigata on Japaneseswordindex has the same mei:

http://japaneseswordindex.com/oshigata/sukenobu.jpg

[Bruce Pennington]

2 minutes ago, Bruno said:

Seki smith?

Listed as Gifu, so yes.

[Bruno]

19 minutes ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Listed as Gifu, so yes.

Thanks, was training my eyes, yasurime and nakago shape ressemble to the usual Seki syle. Really like RJT blades, many fun to study.

[Brian]

Yeah, on the pc I can see it's powder. However the carving still looks newish and un-worn. And the painted rack/assembly numbers isn't something often seen on RJT swords?

[vajo]

The pictures of the blade in that auction are very bad. I can't see anything. I wonder that the mei is cut after the paintshop. Btw. i never saw a Star Stamp with that amount of paintings on the nakago. 

 

[Bruno]

4 hours ago, vajo said:

The pictures of the blade in that auction are very bad. I can't see anything. I wonder that the mei is cut after the paintshop. Btw. i never saw a Star Stamp with that amount of paintings on the nakago. 

 

Well, I have a SEKI RJT smith sword with several paint marks on the nakago too (which is a good antirust btw).

[vajo]

You see on your nakago that the signature was made befor the color markings. The paint goes over the kanji.

Is that the same on the other sword?

[Bruce Pennington]

A couple of thoughts.

 

I have a lot of star-stamped blades with painted numbers, as of yet, none with quite as much painting as this one, but not unusual at all. 

 

Secondly, as I've been scouting through the files, I found this 1945 Kanetomo with painted numbers right across the mei.  You'll notice that the paint didn't get down into the mei cutting, so the painter's strokes were likely fast enough, or light-handed enough to not get down into the chisel grooves.

 

Since the one on topic is powdered it's hard to know if the paint as first or the kanji, but having now seen another example where the paint was not in the mei cuts, I don't think that would be a firm determinant.  The only real evidence would be if the powder were cleaned out and the mei cuts were obviously new. 

 

We face a lot of fakery in this hobby, so skepticism is never out of place.