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Picked up today


Butch

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A dealer friend contacted me to say he had picked up a sword in a deal ...

He is mainly a medal dealer so today I went to see him.

The sword is in excellent condition and the steel Saya as a brown leather combat cover .

The fittings are totally untouched the tsuba is the cut out example and stamped the number 8 the fittings are also stamped the same .

There is no identification marks of any kind on the tang only file marks.

The blade is in great polish and looks possibly to be a early oil quenched blade .

Many thanks Gareth

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76299015-65D3-4C32-B745-933653325EE6.jpeg

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Hi Gareth, thats a great looking shingunto with quality mounts (as much as I can see) and I guess saya is the same.  The blade also looks good, and as you suggest oil temper.  From hamon and nakago it looks like Seki showato.

However, to me it looks like someone has tried to make this look like an older mumei.  Close up of nakago shows the taka-no-ha yasurime changes angle a few cm from jiri.  Original filing continues up the left edge.  Also the nakago shinogi curves a bit plus becomes sharp.  A key feature looks to be  remnant strokes of a kanji (the position suggests it could be "saku" ? ).  Also, on the small pic of nakago, just above the hole, a few small lines could indicate a stamp?   The yasurime here is also redone.  This all appears to be wartime vintage.   But I am often wrong plus have not seen the sword itself.  

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39 minutes ago, mecox said:

Close up of nakago shows the taka-no-ha yasurime changes angle a few cm from jiri.  Original filing continues up the left edge.  Also the nakago shinogi curves a bit plus becomes sharp.  A key feature looks to be  remnant strokes of a kanji (the position suggests it could be "saku" ? ).  Also, on the small pic of nakago, just above the hole, a few small lines could indicate a stamp

Mal,

I see what you mean.  I agree, but it doesn’t look new, it looks as aged as the rest.  Do you think a shop owner might have had this done to conceal the stamp? Possibly to get more money for the sword?

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2 hours ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

It is unlikely as one of the objectives of the stamps was to stop inferior quality blades being sold to officers during the 30's!

This gets deeply into the whole question about the Sho and Seki stamping.  It has been said in one of the old interviews that sometimes the stamp was done lightly to make it easier to move later.  This observation would support the idea that the stamps only went on showato, and were there to say "This is a good quality showato."  If so, then removing the stamp would allow a shop owner to sell, falsely of course, the blade as gendaito.

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I see what you are all saying now. So this was a signed Shawato and the Mei has totally been filed off too pass it off as an older looking Mumei.
What a shame, it looks like a nice clean sword in pretty good condition. I think I may focus on collecting showato blades to help save/protect the less loved blade.

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6 hours ago, Anfoz said:

looks like a nice clean sword in pretty good condition. I think I may focus on collecting showato blades to help save/protect the less loved blade.

It is!  And I love your thinking.  While we all recognize the beauty of a well-crafted nihonto, there are many of us who value every blade.  When I hold a sword in hand, I see the many lives that went into making it - The smith and his apprentices, sure, but guys spent hours of their lives mining the ore; others spent hours processing it into steel; lives were spent producing ito, same', cutting wood for saya and liners; then more lives shaping it all into gunto koshirae.  Transportation was hours of someones' lives.  Then you have the shop owner, and likely his family, and finally the buyer, young newly commissioned officer or graduated/promoted NCO.  Every one of them with stories, families, and lives.  Each gunto is a snapshot of moments of all those lives - right in our hands.

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