Bruce Pennington Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 Hey guys! Another one of those dates written in a different way. Pretty sure the smith is Kanehiro, but correct me if I'm wrong on that. Thanks in advance for the help! 1 Quote
YourBabyBjornBorg Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 Hi! This looks like 濃州関住藤原兼廣作 昭和十二二年二月日 Noshu Seki-Jyu Fujiwara Kanehiro Saku Showa 14 a day in February. This is one of those cases where it's 十二二 ("ten two two") instead of the regular 十四/fourteen because 四/Shi sounds like 死/death/Shi. 5 Quote
The Blacksmith Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 Thank you for that Joe! I have never seen a date written quite like this before. Very interesting. I have only come across the character shi written in the more normal fashion, 四 it certainly looks to be Kanehiro to me too. Quote
John C Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 Here is another example from a thread a couple of years ago. John C. 1 2 Quote
The Blacksmith Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 Thank you John, that is completely new to me, though I do seem to remember somewhere in the empty cavern of my mind the bit about shi and death being similar and thus sometimes avoided. I didn't know about ku though. Thank you for the link. Quote
Bruce Pennington Posted June 23 Author Report Posted June 23 I understand the double "2" meaning "4", but I don't understand the circled kanji. Is that a text version of "10"? Quote
rebcannonshooter Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 Hi Bruce, I've seen a very similar kanji as an alternative form of the number ten. I'm assuming the variance is just the swordsmith's style. Tried to do an AI inquiry on it and got no where. Hope that helps, Tom Quote
Bruce Pennington Posted June 24 Author Report Posted June 24 I might have found the answer. A "old fashioned" kanji for 10 was 拾, right? 2 Quote
YourBabyBjornBorg Posted June 24 Report Posted June 24 Sorry! Yes, it's 拾, one of the old-fasioned ways to write 十. It's auto-corrected in my dumb brain, definitely not just because I was hasting to be the first to reply so I goofed (I should really do something about this juvenile mentality, though orz) 1 1 Quote
Bruce Pennington Posted June 24 Author Report Posted June 24 Interestingly, I only have two other blades by him, with Showa stamp, and he used different dating 'language' on each one! Standard Imperial 2 Quote
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