Rinji Seikishi dated 1945 - Signed by KATSUTERU?
So, I've searched all my resources, and just wanted to check my reading of the mei, as the best I can tell it reads 勝 照 - KATSU TERU, and no other Kanji even comes close to the second one. I went through just about every Mei beginning with KATSU I could find and was not able to find anything. Consulting my Kanji charts came up with TERU for the second character. I can't find any smith listed under this name. It's signed in the usual late war "chippy" way so I thought maybe I was misreading it.
There are occasionally tosho not in lists but swords found. For Seki registration I think at least 4-5. Often they are later in the war and in an arsenal. In Seki there were a few late registration tosho (e.g. 1944) with "katsu" e.g. Katsunori and Katsufusa. Some are young some are old.
