Sword Belts

[Bruce Pennington]

I don't want to expand our forum into uniform and field gear items, but sword belts are a popular item for guys and they are directly associated with military swords.  I think anything with the word "sword.." in it's name is fair game, right? 

 

So, I've created this to be a reference thread for sword belt collectors, just like the tassel thread.  Both the Fuller and Dawson books have a section on them, which I've just gone through.

 

NCO belts were brown, all leather.  These were posted by Kohima on this Warrelics Thread.  There is no colored liner on the backside, as in officer belts. 

 

 

There is an officer belt that has no colored fabric on the backside, called the Sam Brown belt, discussed on @kissakai's thread here:

 

Also discussed on this Warrelics Thread.  They were Navy:

According to Adachi, 
"Regarding the Sam Brown belts, they are regulation as per the naval landing force uniform regulations set forth in 1933. They are supposed to be worn by all NLF officers, even when the sword is not in use. They had already become a defacto standard by at least 1927, as almost every NLF officer in Shanghai had one."

 

 

This is an example (as far as I know!) of a normal Navy belt.  Posted by @tokashikibob HERE.

 

Army officer belts were black with blue or red fabric liners.  Company grade were blue, Field grade and General officer red.  Posted by @IJASWORDS HERE.

 

 

This picture actually shows a four army styles (from bottom) - Field grade, Company grade, NCO, and canvas Field belt, which I believe is an officer belt.

[Bruce Pennington]

Linking Ian's post, @Ian B3HR2UH showing field belts with unusual features:

 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Here is another unusual field belt posted by Geoff Ward on this Warrelics thread.  It has a pocket for a folding knife with can opener:

 

[Bruce Pennington]

From the Warrelics thread, linked above, Akira Komiya has posted regulation three regulation changes and comments.  I found it interesting that prior to 1912 the officer belts, on reverse side, were to be colored leather (blue & red).  Don't think I've ever seen an example of that.  Also interesting was the depiction of Warrant Officer belts:

"Here are drawings from the Meiji 19 (1886), Meiji 45 (1912) and Showa 13 (1938) uniform regulations showing the evolution of officers' and warrant officers' sword belts. (There were no changes to the specifications in the interim uniform regulation changes.)

The biggest change is that until the 1938 regulations, warrant officers had their own sword belts; non-cavalry warrant officers with a single layer leather belt without backing nor the hook and eye adjustment, and the hanger straps lacking the carbine hooks of officers belts, and cavalry warrant officers having a leather hanger strap with carbine hook in lieu of officers chain hangers.

The obverse was specified to be 護謨革, rubber coated leather = patent leather before the Showa 13 regulation changes when it became plain black leather (calf leather).

The reverse of non-cavalry officers sword belts were initially specified to be of the appropriately colored leather, red for generals and field grade officers, blue leather for company grade officers, but from the Meiji 45 specifications it could be either colored leather or woolen material.

The Showa 13 (1938) regulations done away with the warrant officers' sword belts and warrant officers were to wear the same belts as company grade officers with a blue backing. Also, the Showa 13 regulations show only a single hanger strap in accordance with the adoption of the Type 98 sword with a single hanger ring. "

[Michaelr]

Great job Bruce. Thank you for always sharing and helping  make this forum a Great Place. I think Belt Section would be a real nice addition   

  MikeR

[Bruce Pennington]

Example of the leather officer belt, Field grade and General officer, posted by Squale69 at this Warrelics thread.

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Found this Company grade leather belt at Military-antiques-Stockholm.com (lost the link):

 

[tokashikibob]

Great job Bruce!

[Ian B3HR2UH]

Here are some Naval officers belts . The top one is a senior officers ( Lt Commander to Captain ) full dress belt for Medical officers . The central one is another full dress belt for senior line officers and the bottom one is the standard service belt .

 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

2 hours ago, Ian B3HR2UH said:

Here are some Naval officers belts . The top one is a senior officers ( Lt Commander to Captain ) full dress belt for Medical officers . The central one is another full dress belt for senior line officers and the bottom one is the standard service belt .

Excellent, Ian, thank you!  I had a feeling the Navy belt I posted earlier was not the total picture.  

[Bruce Pennington]

I'm realizing the belt topic, like swords, is going to be bigger and broader than I'd imagined.  

 

Here's a belt shared by @Marcin.  It's advertised to be a "youth school, pre-military" belt.  I asked Akira Komiya at Warrelics about it and he believes it to be a "...belt with the round buckle to be for a girl’s school uniform. I remember seeing some school girls wearing such belts with their summer white sailor jacket style school uniforms while commuting on trains. I believe they were students of the high school/junior high school attached to the Ochanomizu Women’s University as they would have taken the same line as I did. Here is an example photo of the uniform complete with belt. Although the belt is not identical, there are other schools which uniforms came with belts"

 

So, essentially correct.

 

Belt in question:

 

 

Akira's example:

 

[Lareon]

Here, I have a standard naval belt for you Bruce

[Marcin]

On 6/20/2026 at 5:34 AM, Ian B3HR2UH said:

Here are some Naval officers belts . The top one is a senior officers ( Lt Commander to Captain ) full dress belt for Medical officers . The central one is another full dress belt for senior line officers and the bottom one is the standard service belt .

 

 

 

What about this one? Isn't it medical? Great shape or fake? :D

[Bruce Pennington]

Good examples, Marcin!  I wouldn't know how to determine if that last one was original or not.  Akira Komiya at Warrelics likely could help with that.

[Marcin]

20 minutes ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Good examples, Marcin!  I wouldn't know how to determine if that last one was original or not.  Akira Komiya at Warrelics likely could help with that.

Last picture something for yay and nay at once. Screw shouldn’t be imo visible, yet belt have some wear and tear.

I always look for something like wear at obi-tori (haikan) every gunto saya could have some canvas or leather cover yet used gunto would have wear just there.

Edited July 21 by Marcin

[Bruce Pennington]

Getting to understand the Navy belts a little more.  Here's a discussion provided by Akira Komiya HERE at Warrelics in answer to my question about a belt

 

"This is a post February 26, 1914 sword belt for wear by line admirals (since 1923, admirals ranks in the engineering branch was abolished and those engineer officers making it to admiral rank became admirals of the line branch in name only) with their full dress uniform (tailcoat with epaulets and bicorn hat). The pattern of braid on the belt follows the same patterns as on shoulder boards; single broad gold stripe denotes admirals, two gold stripes field grade (or whatever they call them in the navy), and a narrow gold stripe, company grade officers (I thought I once read they were called subalterns in the navy?). Non-line officers’ belts had their branch colors in the margins. Prior to February 26, 1914 the buckles also reflected the rank of the wearers; line admirals’ buckles had a silver colored paulownia with 5, 7 and 5 flowers within a rope and laurel, line field grade officers had a silver paulownia with 3, 5 and 3 flowers on a silver anchor within a rope border and line company grade officers had a silver cherry blossom on a silver anchor, which was to become the universal buckle design not just for line officers but also for non-line officers in 1919. Non- line officers had different buckles with gold colored badges until October 3, 1919 when they switched to the universal design.
I will attach a drawing showing the sword belt buckles.
The bottom row shows buckles for line officers and the top row those for non-line officers."

 

So, Ian's belt above, with two row of gold, separated by a black line, make it senior, or we would say Field grade, and the red edges are apparently medical non-line officer.

Belts, like Marcin posted, with a single, narrow gold strip down the middle are Company grade.

 

I'll see if I can find out a color scheme for the various non-line jobs.

[Marcin]

I have it :D I wanted to post it beforehand but wanted to drop it in chain pm like usual. full structure here

 

Extra for army here

Edited July 22 by Marcin

[Bruce Pennington]

OH, Excellent!  Added that one to my files!

[john42768]

IJN Service Dress Belt. Not pretty , but appears original with a probable replacement/ repair since long hanger as it is narrower . Suppose the name on back of buckle pad is Mikubo. I'm told this is an uncommon name and might be one able to traced. Might anyone have access to IJN roster records?  Photos for your comments. Thanks in advance. Best, John S.

Edited Wednesday at 09:16 PM by john42768