Ian B3HR2UH

And a couple more shots

I was shown this sword during the week . The father of the man who owns it was the Clerk of Courts in rural Victoria in the 60's . The sword was an exhibit in a court case and at the conclusion of the case no one claimed it so the Clerk wound up with it .Another son had buffed the blade and tsuba and had glued the handle on The kabuto gane is interesting as it is a crude copy of a shin gunto one . The cherry blossoms have been cast separately from the main body . The fuchi is plain iron without a base plate . The menuki appear to be a cherry blossom flanked by two smaller ones . There are no marks on anything other than some hard to read red writing on the saya cover, one of which appears to be Gun It seems to me that this has been made during the war in the south west Pacific area . The finer details make me think that it is a bit too good to have been knocked out in an Australian workshop . I concluded that it was Japanese made in the Islands . I have attached photos for posterity and in case anyone turns up a similar one. Ian Brooks

Warning bells everywhere on that one , avoid it and whoever is selling it , Ian Brooks

HI Jaykob , might I ask what is your grandfathers name and where did he reside ?.Do you know how he acquired the sword ? There may be references to him and the sword in old sword society magazines or old collectors here may have met him , assuming he was a collector . Ian Brooks

Why would you send an out of polish blade to the NBTHK , when the blade is so obviously not by Sadamune ? Just a waste of money . Ian Brooks

Thanks Matt , I must admit that I expected to see a piece of new wood under the fuchi but what is there looks absolutely right . The cream coloured binding in the Plimpton book looked way off as well whereas the colour in your photo looks correct . What is the blade like ? Ian Brooks

Hi Matthew , I see that your earlier post says that the Majors name was on the wooden liner but in the book it is said to be " on the blade " That doesn't say much about the author . I for one would like to see some more pictures . The wood under the fuchi would be interesting to me . Ian Brooks

When I see pieces like this illustrated, with short inaccurate descriptions and no references to the blades in them, I wonder if the book is something that I should bother getting. Ian Brooks

Thank God you didn't get your hands on a real one . Ian Brooks

This reminds me of one that I purchased from the family of the man who bought it back ( so it is all original ) . As you can see there is a purple sageo tied over the leather cover below the carrying ring and the kurigata . The blue and brown rank tassle has then been tied over the sageo . I guess they didn't want to drill a hole for the sarute through the same. Ian Brooks

Adam you are dreaming if you think that the Japanese dealer has got this one wrong and that you are smart enough to pick the diamond in the rough . The dealer will probably have forgotten more than you know, so it makes no sense pitting your knowledge against theirs . They are really being upfront saying that the piece is a later copy. Ian Brooks

Is there anyone else out there who thinks , like me, that this has been rebound to sell to gullible gaijin ? Ian Brooks

I think that your assessment is correct Steve . I would give it a miss . Ian Brooks

Hi Mickie , congratulatons on having a go at translating this yourself . I was pretty impressed with what you achieved . Too many collectors here will not attempt a translation and will thus remain ignorant forever.Well done Ian Brooks

Hi Simon , I was the winning bidder on that sword with about a minute to go but was then blown out of the water ! From memory I bid twelve or thirteen thousand and it eventually sold for around seventeen thousand . Ian Brooks

Here are a couple that I have Bruce . The naval one shows the stippling that I mentioned . It is also gilded on the lower areas which some of these had when they were new . Ian Brooks

Did anyone see the four sets of gunto menuki for sale on Jauce recently ? Each of the sets had a mon on the middle of the menuki as you would see on a high quality gunto mount . To my eye the silver mon looked a bit thicker than usual and they didn't have the stippled effect on the cut away areas that you see on the real ones. I decided that they were reproductions but there were 119 bids and someone liked them well enough to pay 41500 yen for them . If they were really left over WW2 stock then it probably shows that some of the Mon, we assume are family Mon, are just something nice that was picked out of a dealers stock. Today I saw four more sets for sale which reinforced my view that they are modern reproductions I put this up as if it isn't bought to light people will soon believe that these are genuine old pieces ( like the mon on the 1944 pattern sword ) Ian Brooks

Congratulations on having the guts to say it Jacques . I also think that the so called authentic one is not right . Ian Brooks

I always enjoy reading your analysis Kirill . You might be right about this one . I know though , that if I had been fortunate enough to stumble across this piece , I wouldn't have parted with it so easily . Ian Brooks

Jacques , are you being serious ? Can't you see that the stamp has been removed ? Do you think that this blade is worthy of papers ? Ian Brooks

Simon , thank you for reposting that . It really makes you wonder how worthwhlie Hozon papers are when a piece like this can get them , I was stunned that it had papers . Ian Brooks

Hi Chris , I don't know if Mr Bowman is trying to imply that this sword was surrendered on the Missouri or not, but if he is ,then it is false as no swords were surrendered on the Missouri . If the mans grandfather was on the Missouri on the day of the surrrender then he was not in the Islands at the time and presumably wasn't in a position to pick up an Island made sword after the surrender . This is because he was in Japan not the islands where these monstrosities are said to come from . The story is rubbish as is the sword . Ian Brooks

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Willis Hawley . The second biggest advancement that I made in my collecting was when Hawleys Japanese Swordsmith books arrived in the mail. If you can get your hands on the Token society of Great Britain Progeramme No 78 there is an eleven page article , Willis Hawley Tells All . In the article Willis writes about his collecting journey and it is a fascinating read . In the same programmme there is an article by Graeme Curtis that describes his visit to Hawleys house . The JSSUS Newsletter of January 1988 has an obituary and early photograph of Willis . I have always kept a couple of letters that he wrote to me in about 1973- 1974 . Ian Brooks

Hi Sergio , just over a thousand . Jussi has the exact number in his writings .

Sham , we also know that industrious Australian troops were turning out " Japanese swords " to sell to the Americans . Other nationalities were probably doing this as well . I came across a fair number of jeep spring / island made swords that returned soldiers were selling in the 1970's. These were obviously genuine world war two artifacts but even then you could not tell what was Japanese made and what was made by others . The sword that is said to be made in New Guinea is not a type that I came across (( and I saw probably several thousand swords ). Given that there are a few of this type floating around out there I think it can safely be said that it was not made in New Guinea. As someone else commented elsewhere why bother about this junk when there are so many good interesting and genuine items to collect