JonP

hi Chris, did you send this out of NZ to be polished, I assume so. Can you point me to the link of unpolished pics please and let me know who you used to polish. Cheers Jon

Maybe a bit of Rorschach going on with rust marks 🤷 The right end pic is on the other side.

The blade was in a poor state from misuse when I got it in the 80’s. Blade only and the owner had cleaned the tang and lost its patina sadly. It is old and worn.

A piece of masking tape so it fitted better in the crap wooden handle I made decades ago 😂

If anyone would like to take conservatorship on this blade and restore it, please get in touch. I’d prefer to trade or part exchange on a tamahagane tanto, wakizashi or katana that looks in better condition in the hope it will be more likely to be treasured by my grandchild I leave it to.

That’s a really nice piece for around NZ $3500 I’d pay that any day. Well done.

Thanks guys, some very clear informative answers. I now understand what the characters mean and understand more about the variations about them. I wonder which Kanemitsu made this. It would certainly be a bad day for anyone meeting the sharp end of this blade. Merry xmas all.

Excellent explanation thank you.

Thank you, very helpful information. 🤗

Thanks Jussi. I see 2 characters. Do you understand the meaning of each character, if so can you tell me please? Merry Xmas After drawing the characters as simply as I see them, {I might be missing bits} I can see the bottom character is easily recognisable on the list of Kanemitsu mei. I’d like to know what this character translates as eg is this the character for Kanemitsu ? 🤷

After drawing the characters as simply as I see them, {I might be missing bits} I can see the bottom character is easily recognisable on the list of Kanemitsu mei. I’d like to know what this character translates as eg is this the character for Kanemitsu ? 🤷

I still can’t see the 2 characters on my tanto anywhere that seem to match the characters for Kanemitsu. It is very faint with age but the 1st character is pretty distinctive. My hope was someone on the forum was able to translate the 2 characters. Without the translation I can’t even start to theorise on the true smith. 🤗