need translation help on mei

[texanmarauder]

my grandpa brought this back from Japan near the end of WW2. It is a shin gunto officers sword, and the mei is only two symbols long. i have tried to translate, but my skills are lacking and i would like to know more about this sword. it is indeed steel, that much i know. it does not seem to be folded, as the inactive hamon shows. the hilt is in bad shape, as the lacing and skin is almost completely gone. not sure what those marks are on the blade. im not looking to sell it, but would eventually like to restore it. any help would be much appreciated. for all i know its a cheap fake, but hell, it passed from my grandpa to my dad to me.

[Ray Singer]

Photo is not very clear, but perhaps Kanemasa. 

[texanmarauder]

any idea what those marks on the blade are? is that rust or something else?

[Bruce Pennington]

Hi John!  These blades went through a lot from the war and the years after the war.  Hard to know the causes of such stains.  Your saya (scabbard) originally would have had a leather cover.  They quite often are missing.  You can find guys that do re-wraps for tsuka (handles) with a search on NMB.  Any small stamps or numbers on the nakago (tang)?

[texanmarauder]

On 10/6/2022 at 8:29 AM, Bruce Pennington said:

Hi John!  These blades went through a lot from the war and the years after the war.  Hard to know the causes of such stains.  Your saya (scabbard) originally would have had a leather cover.  They quite often are missing.  You can find guys that do re-wraps for tsuka (handles) with a search on NMB.  Any small stamps or numbers on the nakago (tang)?

nope, just those two symbols. its hard to get a good picture because of the rust, but to the mark 1 eyeball there are no other markings on the nakago. the second symbol is easily identifiable but i have never seen the first and i have searched online for days. is it true that after 1940 machined blades using puddle steel and such had to be marked on the tang?

[SteveM]

Can you post a clearer close-up of the mei?

[Bruce Pennington]

18 hours ago, texanmarauder said:

is it true that after 1940 machined blades using puddle steel and such had to be marked on the tang?

No.  They made blades a variety of ways all throughout the war, and there was no known law or order requiring stamping.  The military took control of sword production late-'41 to early '42 and we see a huge increase in arsenal inspector stamps after that.  Prior, the Seki Cutlery Manufacturers Association was inspecting blades for quality and would stamp those that passed.

[texanmarauder]

hopefully this will show the mei a little clearer

[SteveM]

Thank you, John. I was hoping it would reveal a bit more, but unfortunately it doesn't. Unusual way of writing 定. 

[Bruce Pennington]

Could it be "包正" ?  Sesko lists 4 smiths using this mei for Kanemasa from the 1300s to the 1500s.

[texanmarauder]

2 hours ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Could it be "包正" ?  Sesko lists 4 smiths using this mei for Kanemasa from the 1300s to the 1500s.

it is the closest symbol to the one on the mei so far. the second symbol is easy to identify, relatively anyway.

[SteveM]

Sorry, my post wasn't clear. I think its trying to be Sadamasa (定正). But the Sada is horribly executed. And, there aren't any smiths who used that name, despite it being composed of two extremely common characters. Seems like there should be many "Sadamasa" smiths, but there were none that I could find. 

 

包 feels like a bit of a stretch. There are a ton of variants for 包, but they all feel too far removed from what is inscribed on this sword.