Navy gunto with one hanger

[Rawa]

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/208615160_wwii-ijn-Japanese-naval-officer-s-samurai-sword-kai-gunto

 

Is this even genuine? It looks more like t98[gunzoku] then navy, but it have 2 toyokawa arsenal stamps on blade.

Is this elusive blade of landing forces? 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Naval_Landing_Forces

[Rawa]

Stamps

[Conway S]

Marcin,

 

Yes it’s real. These are post-war souvenir swords produced for the U.S. occupation forces. These swords were assembled with a mix of Kai Gunto and Shin Gunto fittings. See the below thread for the bulk of the discussion.
 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

First #49 in the chart!  Thanks for posting this, Marcin.  

[Jcstroud]

Having 2 stamps which one was stamped first,in other words is there any way of knowing chronologically it seems the larger 6mm stamp appears mostly on mumei blades and the smaller seems to appear more on Takayama blades?

[Rawa]

Not really. I would tell that small one just above mekugi ana is first proper inspection mark. Bigger one was added later maybe becouse blade was reissued? So it passed another quality control? Here you have added mumei steinless steel with only one stamp.

[Bruce Pennington]

I don't have a good feel for how or why the 2 sizes were used.  My only tracking numbers are due to the souvenir chart, so I cannot speak to the broader spectrum of Navy blades.  But in my chart,  I only have 5 that are double stamped:

 

Mumei - 3

Mitsunaga - 1

Takeyasu - 1

 

I have 6 Takayama blades in the souvenir chart.  The breakdown of large vs small:

Large -1 

Small - 2

No stamps - 2

Unknown - 1

 

Of the souvenirs in general, out of 108 blades:

 

Large - 58

Small - 16

The rest are not shown in photos.

 

It would take someone like @Kiipu to discuss the practice on wartime blades.

[Rawa]

But this one have 2 om same side of nakago.

[Bruce Pennington]

1 minute ago, Rawa said:

But this one have 2 om same side of nakago.

That is what I mean when I said double stamped.  All 5 have a large stamp and a small stamp, same side.

 

I checked my files, and for a while I was filing circled anchors and have a few dozen.  The problem is that they are ALL undated.  So, it seems unlikely we could tie the use to a timeline.  I have not gone through them to sort large stamps from small.  I think @mecox had a discussion of the use in his Navy article.

The ones in my file that are signed are:

Hiratoshi

Inaba

Kanenayo

Kiyomichi

Masahiro

Taketada

Takeyasu

Takeyoshi

Toyosuke