Looking for help with Katana identification

[TheTinkerBard]

Hey all!

 

New to these forums, thanks for having me!

 

I'm looking for info on this Sword I bought recently, can anyone please help me interpret the signature? I've asked around on a couple of different forums and results are varying, some read it as Fujiwara Noritsugu, others think it says Tsukahara Noritsugu... Would like to find out more about the swordsmith so if anyone knows anything I'd appreciate any and all info.

 

I believe it is a WWII era Gunto, but upon dissassembly I couldn't find any mass production stamps commonly seen on Gunto/Showato of that era so I began to think that maybe this could possibly be a Gendaito?... I'm no expert but I think it looks a bit nicer than mass produced Gunto/Showato sometimes tend to do. It appears to be folded and water quenched as it has a discrete but visible Hada and prominent Hamon. The Nagasa is just under 61cm, the Sori is about 14mm and it has proper geometric Yokote (though not very prominent) and not just a cross polished Kissaki. Can anyone help me interpret the signature and possibly identify the Swordsmith and manufacture time period?

 

Also I realised I posted in the wrong forum section, is there any way to move or delete the thread?

 

Thanks in advance!

/Anton

Edited December 10 by TheTinkerBard

[robinalexander]

[Nobody]

I read it as 濃州住塚原則次作 – Noshu ju Tsukahara Noritsugu saku.

[TheTinkerBard]

1 hour ago, Nobody said:

I read it as 濃州住塚原則次作 – Noshu ju Tsukahara Noritsugu saku.

Thank you, this seems likeely to be true since others read it as the same. Thanks for the info!

 

It was suggested to me by a person on another forum that the signature looks like it is quite similar to/might have some relation to 濃州住塚原兼次 - Kanetsugu Tsukahara, resident of Mino Province, real name of Jiro Tsukahara, a swordsmith in Nagazumi-cho Seki City. Any chance that this is what the signature is supposed to say? I'm not able to find any record of a Noritsugu but there is some info about Kanetsugu... I'm not very good at interpreting the signature at all, not really sure I can see it as either 濃州住塚原則次作 or 濃州住塚原兼次 but the two do look similar if the majority of the signature is read correctly.

[nulldevice]

6 hours ago, TheTinkerBard said:

Thank you, this seems likeely to be true since others read it as the same. Thanks for the info!

 

It was suggested to me by a person on another forum that the signature looks like it is quite similar to/might have some relation to 濃州住塚原兼次 - Kanetsugu Tsukahara, resident of Mino Province, real name of Jiro Tsukahara, a swordsmith in Nagazumi-cho Seki City. Any chance that this is what the signature is supposed to say? I'm not able to find any record of a Noritsugu but there is some info about Kanetsugu... I'm not very good at interpreting the signature at all, not really sure I can see it as either 濃州住塚原則次作 or 濃州住塚原兼次 but the two do look similar if the majority of the signature is read correctly.

It’s definitely not Kanetsugu. Mino smiths had a very distinctive way they wrote the Kane 兼 kanji and this looks nothing like that. 
 

Noritsugu looks correct.

[Bruce Pennington]

Anton,

There is no way that this one read "Kanetsugu".  

 

Now, there were smiths that changed their art name over the span of their careers.  Whether Kanetsugu was one of them, I cannot say.  Mal Cox, @mecox, could if anyone can.

[TheTinkerBard]

On 12/11/2025 at 3:32 PM, Bruce Pennington said:

Anton,

There is no way that this one read "Kanetsugu".  

 

Now, there were smiths that changed their art name over the span of their careers.  Whether Kanetsugu was one of them, I cannot say.  Mal Cox, @mecox, could if anyone can.

 

To be honest I'm having a hard time seeing either, the Nori kanji also looks weird to me... The only reason I thought Kanetsugu could maybe kind of make sense is because everything else matches, but perhaps it's because it's a common name... I'll try to take some better pictures, perhaps that can clear things up.

[Bruce Pennington]

Anton,

The smiths often got quite stylish and 'loose' with the kanji.  But with practice (and believe me I have a long way to go!), you start to recognize some in spite of their handwriting.  

From right to left on the "NORI" kanji, you can clearly see the long vertical stroke.  Then, you see the short vertical stroke, and finally, on the left is the 3-box stack with 2 'feet' at the bottom.

[TheTinkerBard]

34 minutes ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Anton,

The smiths often got quite stylish and 'loose' with the kanji.  But with practice (and believe me I have a long way to go!), you start to recognize some in spite of their handwriting.  

From right to left on the "NORI" kanji, you can clearly see the long vertical stroke.  Then, you see the short vertical stroke, and finally, on the left is the 3-box stack with 2 'feet' at the bottom.

Thank you very much for the clear explanation Bruce, I very much appreciate the opportunity to learn! To me it looks like thee "three boxes" have been left open on the top left and bottom right corner making it look almost like a backwards S, which is why I still have a hard time identifying it as Nori... I tried taking some better pictures but it's difficult to get my phone camera to focus properly across the entire length of the tang so I tried splitting the picture in two. I don't know if it reveals any new info though...

 

Edited December 12 by TheTinkerBard

[TheTinkerBard]

I also tried to fill in the chissel marks using red lines while comparing with the tang by eye in order to perhaps make the lines a bit more clear. This is what it looks like to me:

 

[nulldevice]

Even drawing the kanji as you describe it (remember that many of these smiths have what we call "Chippy" mei where the strokes don't form perfect representations of the kanji that we see on the digital screen today (don't even get started with Japanese calligraphy...)), here are the results on a very good "Handwritten Kanji" deciphering tool. 

 

 

The top result is still "Nori" and the other matches don't really make sense as they aren't used for names with only some appearing as parts of places or titles. 

 

Here is a thread with a mei from Tsukahara Kanetsugu, in this case the Kane is exactly what we'd expect from that Mino style and you'll see it everywhere. Once you recognize it, there is nothing mistakable about it: 

 

And another Kanetsugu:

 

 

[TheTinkerBard]

32 minutes ago, nulldevice said:

Even drawing the kanji as you describe it (remember that many of these smiths have what we call "Chippy" mei where the strokes don't form perfect representations of the kanji that we see on the digital screen today (don't even get started with Japanese calligraphy...)), here are the results on a very good "Handwritten Kanji" deciphering tool. 

 

 

The top result is still "Nori" and the other matches don't really make sense as they aren't used for names with only some appearing as parts of places or titles. 

 

Here is a thread with a mei from Tsukahara Kanetsugu, in this case the Kane is exactly what we'd expect from that Mino style and you'll see it everywhere. Once you recognize it, there is nothing mistakable about it: 

 

And another Kanetsugu:

 

 

Thanks very much for the explanation! I find it much easier to compare signatures side by side rather than comparing a signature to proper form to be honest, and I absolutely agree that the signature on my sword does not look like the other swordsmiths sign for Kane (even though I still have a hard time seeing it as Nori). Either way, I think since most agree on what the Mei says we can likely determine that this is the correct translation. Now I just want to find more infoi about this swordsmith! 

[John C]

16 minutes ago, TheTinkerBard said:

compare signatures side by side

Just a general note. Some smiths changed their style frequently, which makes it hard to compare. For example, the "Kane" in the pic below are all from the same smith: Nakata Kanehide - 1938 (top left), 1944 (bottom left), 1945 (top right), and 1972 (bottom right). They are different from each other, however they all contain the elements of the "proper" kanji.

John C.

[TheTinkerBard]

38 minutes ago, John C said:

Just a general note. Some smiths changed their style frequently, which makes it hard to compare. For example, the "Kane" in the pic below are all from the same smith: Nakata Kanehide - 1938 (top left), 1944 (bottom left), 1945 (top right), and 1972 (bottom right). They are different from each other, however they all contain the elements of the "proper" kanji.

John C.

Right, that's just everything out the window then lol...  To me these are four completely different characters. Maybe with some similarities but still... Comparing them side by side and trying to decide whether or not they are by the same person I'd guess absoluteely not since they are too different.