Translation needed

[banjoe]

I have had this for years and finally want to know what it says.

[John A Stuart]

Mino Ujifusa. John

[banjoe]

Thank you John.Was that including both pictures? -Joe

[John A Stuart]

The stand alone kanji 白(shiro, hyaku, byaku) meaning white is unknown to me what it represents. John

[banjoe]

John do you have any suggestions on what the next step might be for attaining an accurate history of this sword? On the other side of the blade are 3 symbols hand written in what looks like red paint.

[John A Stuart]

There were a couple of Ujifusa smiths in Mino during the war of the Seki, Gifu groups. Rich's site has this one. http://home.earthlink.net/~ttstein/ujifusa2.jpg I don't know who the specific smith is. Maybe if you look him up in Slough's book. John

[Grey Doffin]

Hi, name please,

There are no Ujifusa in John Slough's book; odds are you won't be able to learn much of anything about the smith. The odds that you can learn anything of this particular sword's history before it left Japan are pretty near zero. The red paint will be numbers (inventory and/or assembly) and won't tell you anything useful.

Grey

[Jean]

J.J.,

 

Please sign your post by initials or name as per the Board rules.

 

Tracing a sword history is almost impossible if you have nothing consistent to start with, this sword was part of thousand forged at this time.

 

To give you an idea, tracing the history of a Colt 45 model 1911 A1 manufactured during the second world war would be a kid's game compare to tracing this sword's one...

[chrisf]

Fuller and Gregory 'Swordsmiths of Japan 1926-1945' oshigata 366 Ujifusa with the same 'shiro' character.Possibly Shinoda Ujifusa who received swordsmith's licence 26th October 1939,rated 'Chu' by Kurihara Hikosaburo in 1942 and 'Third seat' in 1941 exhibition.

'Shiro' thought to possibly indicate purity of workmanship or thought.

[banjoe]

Thanks for the help. I am not sure what you are talking about concerning "name please". I signed my name on my first post.

[Brian]

Joe,

We require every post to be signed with a name, and preferably an initial. Easiest is just add it to your signature in your profile, and it will do it automaticallly.

 

Brian

 

Ps - second post, not first.

[george trotter]

Fuller and Gregory 'Swordsmiths of Japan 1926-1945' oshigata 366 Ujifusa with the same 'shiro' character.Possibly Shinoda Ujifusa who received swordsmith's licence 26th October 1939,rated 'Chu' by Kurihara Hikosaburo in 1942 and 'Third seat' in 1941 exhibition.

'Shiro' thought to possibly indicate purity of workmanship or thought.

 

Your sword mei seems to be a typical gunto/showato Seki mei of WWII, usually cut by the factory "name cutter guy" Na-kiri-shi.

Mino Ujifusa is possibly Shinoda Ujifusa UJI 11 was from Aichi, born 1902...later of Seki (Ono GTKSS 1977 p.91) He was, with Yoshida Masaaki (b. 1914 ibid. p.94), a student of Amaike Masatsune of Seki MAS 1250. He worked with Masatsune, his brother /son? Amaike Kanenaga KAN 203 and brother/son? Amaike Yoshimasa Slough 197, Ful/Greg 82 . I have seen gendaito or quasi gendaito from Kanenaga, but not the other Amaike smiths or Ujifusa. Shinoda Ujifusa appears in TK 51 also. He was (I think) capable of reasonable work, like his teacher, but most of their production of the WWII era was gunto-showato as this seems to be. He was 3rd seat in 1941 Shinsakuto Tenrankai.

Hope this helps.

George.

[chrisf]

I did handle an 'Ujifusa' some years ago,it took my eye(not literally!) because it had a decent sugata as do many of the stamped/arsenal swords that I've seen and handled over the years,outstanding amongst them was a Nagamura Kanekiyo that I bought at auction with fumbari,deep sori,'horse tooth' hamon and felt great 'in hand'.It was in poor polish so no hada visible and a Showa stamp,no,not a National Treasure but very acceptable as a sword.

I'm probably going over old territory here but it's interesting how many of these smiths are rated reasonably well by Kurihara Hikosaburo and it would be more interesting if we knew by what parameters those swords were judged.Maybe there was a political aspect in rewarding them in consideration of their efforts to contribute during wartime.