An interesting short gunto with an osuriage ancestral blade

[AntiquarianCat]

Hello again everyone, I guess I’ve been on a gunto detour as of late and grabbed what I was told was a tank/pilot’s gunto with an old blade in it. I’d value everyone else’s thoughts on it.

It looks too me like one of the civilian mounts converted to gunto use that Gregory and Fuller talked about in their book I think Higo koshirae instead of standard type 98 fittings.

The blade is an osuriage o-wakizashi with a nagasa of 56.2cm, so a cut down katana. I’m told it’s probably Kan´ei or kanbun shinto. That makes sense but a few things make me think otherwise: the blade has relatively little taper with a motohaba of just under 3.2cm and sakihaba of about 2.4cm, it also has a larger than average kissaki for kanbun and wide kasane. I guess that could be Kan´ei, but I’m under the impression that if it weren’t osuriage much of its sori would be saki sori so I wonder if it couldn’t be a Muromachi piece?

It's in old polish. The konie hamon is suguha with some dips in the temper line and ashi. The hada has some nie and seems to be mostly ko-mokume and ko-itame, shinogi also seems to be mokume/itame. Boshi has a good amount of nie and looks like hakikake. The hada and hamon remind me a bit of my Hizen blade but I think the mokume on this one isn’t small enough to be hizen. Could I be looking at a blade from one of Kyushu’s traditions like Bungo Takada? I feel like it looks a bit like some of their swords.

Thanks everyone 

 

[AntiquarianCat]

Here are a few more photos in case they help. It might be worth adding that the jigane has something of a bluish hue (compared to some of my other swords) when in daylight temperature light.

I do plan on taking this to the shinsa (if I can make the show) but I guess for now I’d like to estimate as much as I can about this sword. 

[AntiquarianCat]

Also, I examined the tsuba under lighting. It looks like typical wrought iron with that odd luster it has when struck by light, old brass inlays that half half fallen out. Nothing remarkable but certainly not standard type 98. The fuchi also had inlay work but it’s so eroded I can’t make out anything. As shown the same has worn off everywhere except the lower tsuka.

 

Also, I dodged a bullet while receiving this sword: the container came open, cut with a knife or something and the contents showing. It was already like that when the mailman dropped it off so I suspect someone in the distribution post office cut it to see if it would be worth snatching and thankfully got cold feet.  

 

[DoTanuki yokai]

My guess would be late Muromachi Bizen Sukesada.

[Tensho]

Does the tsuka have more than 1 mekugi-ana drilled? 

[Ooitame]

I would say Hizen, late Muromachi or early Shinto, maybe Tadayoshi lineage.

[AntiquarianCat]

I *think* that the tsuka only has one hole, that marking and depression an inch below the currently used hole looks to me more a result of damage than a patched hole.

 

I did wonder if it could be Hizen so I’m glad to see someone else got that impression. Sukesada is a very interesting suggestion as well, for some reason this sword’s hada, hamon, and jigane hue did remind me a bit of my muromachi Bizen.

Thanks everyone

[Dave R]

 Not so much a Gunto, more a traditionally mounted sword fitted with a haikan for use in the war. Is that a leather covered saya?

[AntiquarianCat]

Yes, it pretty much looks like the leather covered saya my gunto with a kanbun blade had. I’ll admit I don’t know the proper name for this but Fuller book mentions civilian swords converted for use by adding leather and the iron ashi and this sounds like them.

[AntiquarianCat]

I thought the Hizen hypothesis interesting so I took photos of my Hizen gunto under the same lighting conditions and honestly they look similar.

Of course the mystery sword has some spots where the hada and hamon aren’t as tight but that could be because of centuries apart in make and more polishes. They both have a lot of komokume and nie and konie hamon.

Also both are robust with little taper and broad kasane. In fact the wakizashi I’m curious about has a broad kasane with almost no narrowing at the kisaki. I’ve read about that robustness being a Hizen trait so it would be interesting if this new sword -also a survivor of the war- turns out to be from Hizen too.