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Mystery Wakizashi ( lots of pictures )


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So I'm new to checking out military swords and now this one has caught my interest. A fried of mine had this one show up in his random sword collection and I've never seen a handle construction like this. I'm curious if this isn't a weird fake, or a something someone customized in the past. Since this place seems to have a plethora of people who know more than I do, I figured I'd ask for any insight you might have.

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Hi Matthew,

The handle is something someone in the west put together; everything else is original Japanese. This is an older, Samurai sword, not a WWII sword. If you can take a better picture of the tang with signature (rotate the orientation a quarter turn clockwise and use a raking light so the characters stand out), someone here will be able to tell you what it says. Do not attempt to clean or fix anything (looks like someone already tried to clean around the signature, which is unfortunate); well meaning amateurs often do serious damage.

Grey

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22 hours ago, Grey Doffin said:

Hi Matthew,

The handle is something someone in the west put together; everything else is original Japanese. This is an older, Samurai sword, not a WWII sword. If you can take a better picture of the tang with signature (rotate the orientation a quarter turn clockwise and use a raking light so the characters stand out), someone here will be able to tell you what it says. Do not attempt to clean or fix anything (looks like someone already tried to clean around the signature, which is unfortunate); well meaning amateurs often do serious damage.

Grey

Of the two things I picked up about Japanese swords, I'm happy to report that cleaning under the handle being sacrilege is one of them 😆 I'll see about getting a better lighted tang picture. I thought I had one, but it cut off the bottom characters under the major blemish.

 

20 hours ago, SteveM said:

Maybe 備後三原住正真 Bingo Mihara-jū Masazane 

While I was scrolling through this website during my initial investigation, someone mentioned that some of you had magical x-ray vision deciphering badly blemished tangs. They weren't wrong 🤣 I just had my friend send me a better photo of the tang

 

11 hours ago, Bruce Pennington said:

The leather saya cover & haikan (belt loop) are signs the old sword was re-fitted for WWII.  I have never seen a handle like that, and like Grey said, might have been added post-war.  These swords often came home missing parts, and people tend to "fix" them up.

The leathers is what had me thinking WWII in the first place, but everything else about this had me confused. My friend and I had the idea after seeing a post about a "post-war farmer modification" that it probably got the same treatment at some point. While far from traditional, whoever made the handle certainly knew how to make a comfortable one, just wish the pin was accessible so we could simply reattach it.

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11 hours ago, Absolute novice said:

whoever made the handle certainly knew how to make a comfortable one, just wish the pin was accessible so we could simply reattach it.

Matthew,

The style of handle-work reminds me of other stuff I've seen from the war era, or just after the war, when sailors or G.I.s on ships returning home would wrap sword scabbards with cord.  Or the ratan-wrapping we see on some.  It very well could be something like that. 

 

It looks like copper wire?  And what would you say it's coated with?

 

As for the peg, or mekugi, many guys cut the tip off of a bamboo chopstick.  I ordered a set of 3 off the internet pretty cheap.  But in your case, you'd have to drill through the handle wrap to get the mekugi through the nakago hole ( mekugi ana).  On the one hand it would be destructive to the original handle work, but on the other hand, it would make the sword safer to handle and enjoy.

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45 minutes ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Matthew,

The style of handle-work reminds me of other stuff I've seen from the war era, or just after the war, when sailors or G.I.s on ships returning home would wrap sword scabbards with cord.  Or the ratan-wrapping we see on some.  It very well could be something like that. 

 

It looks like copper wire?  And what would you say it's coated with?

 

As for the peg, or mekugi, many guys cut the tip off of a bamboo chopstick.  I ordered a set of 3 off the internet pretty cheap.  But in your case, you'd have to drill through the handle wrap to get the mekugi through the nakago hole ( mekugi ana).  On the one hand it would be destructive to the original handle work, but on the other hand, it would make the sword safer to handle and enjoy.

 

It's definitely copper wire, we were debating on how to get to the peg back in and were tossing around unwrapping it back to the hole and re wrapping it, but not sure how it would handle the abuse, or how we would recreate the construction. The wire end also appears to be soldered to the inside edge of the tsuba which would need to be unsoldered before anything is attempted. The coating feels like a soft metal, akin to pewter, easily scratched with a fingernail, heres to hoping it's not lead 🤣

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