Very low Showa 26 torokusho registration number

[Gerry]

Just thought it'd be interesting to share...

 

This listing just came up for a "Sa" blade, and it has a daimyo torokusho registration number of 24, which is the lowest I've seen yet.

 

https://www.jauce.com/auction/d1227331676

 

 

[Lewis B]

Very early. April 1951. The new Torokushu registrations started 31/3/51. 

 

The 'Sa' on the other hand is up for debate

No excuse not to get modern papers for such a big name attribution....unless you know it's no good. 

Looks nothing like the Kosetsu Samonji

 

 

Edited April 21 by Lewis B

[John C]

Just for context, here's one of mine from November 4, Showa 27 (about 1.5 years after the OP) and we are already up to 7,775.

Question: Did each Board of Education or Prefecture have it's own series of numbers?

 

John C.

[Toki]

1 hour ago, Lewis B said:

Very early. April 1951. The new Torokushu registrations started 31/3/51. 

 

Very early indeed. I am currently waiting on one that supposedly has been registered on March 16th, 1951.

[Gerry]

Just goes to show that not all swords owned by Daimyo were good swords.

 

[John C]

15 minutes ago, Toki said:

March 16th, 1951.

That would be interesting to see. Two weeks prior to the actual start date. Might be a pre-flight or test of the program.

 

John C.

[Toki]

I haven't seen the actual paper so far, since it wasn't of priority for me, but I hope they include a copy.

 

It's still waiting for export permits, but it looks to be an interesting/dubious blade as a whole 

[PNSSHOGUN]

From memory the registration numbers were contextual to the prefecture. That seller has many suspicious items, the kinpun mei is dreadfully poor. 

[Gerry]

I think one of the senior forum members here recently purchased a sword from them that went on to paper for TH.

[Bugyotsuji]

5 hours ago, Toki said:

I haven't seen the actual paper so far, since it wasn't of priority for me, but I hope they include a copy.

 

It's still waiting for export permits, but it looks to be an interesting/dubious blade as a whole 

Ask them to make a copy for you, before it is deregistered.

[Lewis B]

8 hours ago, John C said:

Just for context, here's one of mine from November 4, Showa 27 (about 1.5 years after the OP) and we are already up to 7,775.

Question: Did each Board of Education or Prefecture have it's own series of numbers?

 

John C.

Here is an even earlier one, dated the first day registrations were possible under the modern system. Apparently there was a provisional registration in effect from late 1950. The number is 2048 so that confirms each prefecture had their own registration system and the numbers are by no means indicative of a nationwide order. 

 

 

[Marcin]

57 minutes ago, Lewis B said:

Here is an even earlier one, dated the first day registrations were possible under the modern system. Apparently there was a provisional registration in effect from late 1950. The number is 2048 so that confirms each prefecture had their own registration system and the numbers are by no means indicative of a nationwide order. 

 

 

How You want to made common registry without computers in 50’s It would be taking years with this blade volumen to get something changed

Edited April 22 by Rawa

[Jussi Ekholm]

The beginnings for the licensing system were bit funky. I believe the registering started at bit different dates in some provinces, some started earlier and some later. I did quite a bit of research about this in 2025 when I was calculating the total number of licenses issued. Now I can't even understand why I got so invested in quite useless information like that. 

 

The license in Gerrys OP is amongst the first issued in Shizuoka.

The license in Johns post is from Tochigi.

 

Here are some numbers from Tokyo that I have found, items highlighted in yellow are ones in which the numbering does not fit the running numbering. As you can see pretty much after S26 the running numbering starts to flow in Tokyo area.

 

 

I think currently Tokyo must be passed 330,000 licenses issued, for comparison I think Tochigi is somewhere above 55,000 licenses and Shizuoka might be around 75,000 licenses (unfortunately the last certificate I found for each early last year when I searched were 2024, 2023 and 2018). 

 

[Toki]

5 hours ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Ask them to make a copy for you, before it is deregistered.

Yes, I sent them an E-Mail last night. Haven´t heard back yet.

[John C]

5 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

Tochigi is somewhere above 55,000 licenses

Thanks, Jussi. I'm a bit of a stats guy myself so I too eagerly jump into the data rabbit hole myself! In all seriousness, have you thought about compiling tables into a book on the various smiths and their rankings according to the NBTHK?

 

John C.

[Toki]

5 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

Here are some numbers from Tokyo that I have found, items highlighted in yellow are ones in which the numbering does not fit the running numbering.

That is pretty interesting, is there any info on why thats the case? 

[Mushin]

Is there any evidence that there were forgeries of torokusho as well as everything else? Not sure what it would get you but to further the perception that all early registrations were from important collections. Like Lewis pointed out, if this blade were shoshin, why no modern papers? I can understand how some folks didn't paper their blades, but when you see the prices commanded by top makers like Samonji, the only reason why such a blade would show up in one of these online auctions sans kanteisho instead of a big name dealer would be is if it were not as advertised and the seller was in search of a new fool.  

[Bryce]

G'day Guys,

Here is an early one from a Gassan Sadakatsu in my collection that was registered in Tokyo. As others have said each district had their own numbers. Thus you get later registrations from smaller districts with very low numbers.

Cheers,

Bryce

 

[Jussi Ekholm]

Thanks for posting this Bryce, it would seem to align with yellow number 6 13.3. in my list as far as running numbering goes. I have absolutely no clue why there are inconsistensies in early numbering in Tokyo but it seems to have been fixed roughly after the first year. There might be some Japanese sources around this time period that will explain how the process was intended to go. I haven't really dug into that nor do I have the energy for it, this was just few evenings of checking through some thousands of NBTHK papers on the other side of globe to get the info.

 

Even though I absolutely love books and have been collecting sword books for 20+ years, I do think regular books might be bit outdated source of information in modern society. However I do think Japanese organizations and museums will not be going digital for a long long time. I just feel in modern world every museum should be able to have their items online quite easily. This is why I absolutely love Nagoya Tōken World, you can find all of their 500+ swords here: https://www.touken-world.jp/search/ now try searching what NBTHK has in their collection, or any museum in Japan that has lot of swords.

 

I do have my own always ongoing project with old swords: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/53018-Japanese-old-sword-database/ there have been awesome takes on it with modern knowledge to make virtual form out of it, so information is in better form. I am just very old school and as I been on the excel file for probably 10 years it is just so logical to me. I do plan to update it to 2026 version after I come back home from Japan this summer vacation. The 2025 version had about 15,000 entries, for the current version I have matched some items to avoid duplicate entries and added many new ones, I looked my file and the current number of items is about 16,400.

 

[Toki]

Hello

The seller was kind enough to send me a scan of the registration card.

Since I already bought it, I hope its okay to share.

This one was registered in Aichi, which has their own Number, on March 16, 1951.