I would like to hear your opinion on gunto with showa stamp

[PNSSHOGUN]

Keep in mind that Kanemichi had many students and it wouldn't be unusual for these to be made in a shop setting with multiple smiths making swords under the Kanemichi name.  

[Bryce]

Fair point John,

I have a Kojima Kanemichi blade in my collection and have spent a fair bit of time looking at other war period Kanemichi blades. Yes you see a lot of variation in the mei, but none of them kave a nakago jiri that looks like the blade in this thread. They just don't have straight edges like that.

Cheers,

Bryce

[John C]

On 6/2/2025 at 5:30 PM, SteveM said:

What I'm saying is that shōwatō (aka guntō), especially ones that have signatures by known smiths, have been successfully licensed and some have been papered. It would have been unthinkable before the 2000s, but Japan seems to be more open to seeing the historical value of these swords, if not their artistic value. We see these swords being licensed with increasing frequency.

@Bruce Pennington  @Kiipu

You guys might find this interesting. Through a discussion with a dealer, I commented on showato getting torokusho. I was told that this dealer was commisioned to gather swords to be sent to Japan for resale. The Japanese dealer had several shops and would ask the swords be sent to his Osaka location and not his Tokyo location because the regulations were less strict (or at least less enforced) in Osaka and getting a torokusho for gunto was easier. I bring this up because I was thinking about...gulp...doing some research on registered gunto by location and frequency - unless you guys have done that already.

 

John C.

[Kiipu]

I have not looked into that topic but you might want check with Jussi Ekholm first.

[SteveM]

I have a file on some registered gunto...I'll see if I can dig it up.

[Jussi Ekholm]

I admit I am completely clueless about guntō, it is always fun to visit the military sword section as guys in here have so much knowledge on them. 

[John C]

1 hour ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

completely clueless about guntō,

Hey Jussi:

I was wondering if you have any general stats on nihonto torokusho by location and maybe date? I could use that as a base line for comparing which Boards of Education issue the most torokusho (Tokyo would be my guess) for regular nihonto and which issue the most for gunto.

 

John C.

[Jussi Ekholm]

This is from my file that I did about year ago

 

[John C]

1 hour ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

This is from my file that I did about year ago

Wow! Thank you, Jussi. This will be great for comparing with those issued for gunto. Right off the bat, I can see Tokyo has issued 3 times the number issued by Osaka. If what I heard is true, the registrations issued for gunto will be the reverse. And I am aware that these numbers may not reflect actual stats, however they are a good place to start. Now to go forth and collect data....

 

John C.