What is the meaning of this?

[Blade Refuge]

This pictures were sent to me by a friend who purchased a fake shin gunto. He is asking for the meaning of this character inscribed in the blade. Obviously a part of a reconstructed habaki covered the characters. Maybe the sword was shortened or cut a Chinese faker 😆. He is just curious of the translation in English.

[Dave R]

Context matters, it would help to see the whole sword.

[ROKUJURO]

First picture shows a date - SHOWA JU.....Year 10 of SHOWA era. It is applied in the wrong place.

These characters are not chiseled as in Japanese swords, but mechanically stamped.

[Bruce Pennington]

These are from a well-known faker who likes to put the date on the blade.  The other side a a Japanese flag, and a character, but both are partially struck and polished off.

 

Similar fake HERE.

[chi fan wong]

showa 17 and heaven under the flag.

[Blade Refuge]

Thank you guys. Yes, the markings are not traditionally hammered like the original and some sort of reconstruction has been done as the habaki overlaps part of the inscriptions. He bought it for an equivalent of 15 dollars. Had it restored from a bad status. A fuller is added to the blade and it looked like a 5 year old did it. Its habaki is missing. Its ring in the saya is also gone. Its menuki or the brass mounting bolt in the tsuba is also gone. The brass handle is a bad duplicate and hollow and wood is stuffed inside to hold it over the tang. Tang is of different metal from the blade. The faker welded a flat bar instead. For some reason they cut the fake blade and welded a flatbar at the end that served as tang. Why would they do that? I do not know of fake type 95 that has its tang made of welded flat bar. The saya is stamped moulded iron sheet with its Koiguchi spot welded. I'll ask him for more pics tommorrow. 🙏

[Brian]

I wouldn't bother. This is about as low as a wallhanger gets. There is zero that is even remotely Japanese.
Nothing to be gained by discussing this. Tell him to stick it on the wall.