Stopper37

Thanks guys.... Interesting, another one of those non tamahagane swords papered and sold in Japan... Anything is possible I guess... looking at the link, If it were rust resistant it really has much more nie nioi activities than the normal kai Guntos rust resistant steel... Maybe I should buy the sword..... No I must resist....

Without hijack the OP's topic too much, China was in a political mess, many factions were friendly to many different countries. Along with Panzer II, they also had 300000 M35 German helmets, South West regions had Tommy guns yet did a local copy of the IJA type 38 rifle.... Anything was possible there. I collect Mauser (at least half of the post ww1 C96 went to China) so read up about these things. Sorry guys, this is actually way out of the scope of this site, I will stop now

I was not talking about Chinese collaborator swords, the style I refered to was the early 1910s Chinese sword. I am holding a copy of Chinese Swords vol 2: Beiyang/Republican & Warlord by Jan E. Culbertson in front of me at the moment. They are not unicorns. The cross swords were usually "five race" flag and Republican war flag (what I called the wheel thingie) As for my sword being suspect, I have had a few email exchanges with Jan some years back about it and he seemed to think it was legit. Of course we could be both wrong. My point was merely that they counterfeiter copied a non Japanese sword by making a solid cast repro of a Chinese sword, so it is a beyond lousy job. Whether my sword was legit was not relevant. Edit: Attached is a low res pic that Jan sent me before it went into his book, the "wheel thingie" is just one of the many variants of the republican flags. In the book, there were also Chinese contract (not Japanese occupation) Kyu guntos with the war flag where cherry blossom is usually found.

That is actually a repro of a Chinese dress sword, the "wheel" was an early Chinese Republican era symbol. Here are some pics of the sword I had years ago. The better ones were said to be Japanese made and actually harder to find than a IJA dress Saber. You even get kyu Guntos like that (people often think that wheel looking thingie is a Mon) The full brass cast handle is a dead giveaway, they are not even trying......

I didn't buy the sword, just saw it on a local gun sale site (I lurk those sites to find older blades in Gunto mounts). Generally I would go meh, it's showato but have never come across Tokushu Hagane on the tang before and curious about it. https://www.buyusedguns.com.au/Japanese-sword-15712.html

I have recently came across a Gunto signed Tokushu-ko motte Ido Hidetoshi saku (特殊鋼以井戸秀俊作), while Guntos are usually not my cup of tea, I am very curious about what "Special Steel"/Tokushu Hagane is..... Kaigunto type rust resistant steel? Yasuki Hagane? Something totally different?

Not too much help for Japanese sword collectors to be honest, I have all 3 volumes plus the dagger book, there are some examples of Japanese made dress swords in each volume (only a one in Vol 3). Having said that, it would have saved lots of collectors time and effort to search for the "mon" on a kyu gunto handle of a Japanese made Chinese Republican sword (it has a funny looking 9 pointed star that looks like a mon). It is a pity that he did not include the Japanese made Manchukuo daggers in the Chinese dagger book, it was in his draft (he was kind enough to send me an electronic copy before the book was available in 2011).

According to page 23 of Jan Culbertson's Chinese Sword: nationalist and communist, the logo is Nationalist Chinese Police. Edit: looks like its been answered in another post thread, nevermind

okay.... here are the two sides of the Nakago http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... CN2723.jpg http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... CN2719.jpg The spine side http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... CN2721.jpg and next to a longish Wakizashi http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... CN2728.jpg The more I look at it, the more I think it is not a wakizashi blade. The blade is too long (just over 20in from mune to tip) to be this narrow. Although the hamon is very very very narrow (at least it doesn't run off and there is also enough meat left for a polisher to put the shinogi back on, phew) that it could have be polished down a lot. http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... CN2730.jpg Also the Nakago doesn't look like it follow the curve of the blade....

I will try to post some pics when I am reunited with my digi cam tomorrow, it was left at work.....

It was my thought as well but was wondering if there were proper gendaito blades found in those police mounts as well..... yeah it is an eye sore and back into the mounts already.... Missing SA already, it is raining here in WINTER!!!! Never had to oil swords more than once a month in winter before.....

And here's the whole blade http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... 011003.jpg

I picked up a police/prison short sword just because I was curious (bored) and the price was good. I was expecting to found a chormed blade inside but it wasn't. None the less, I didn't pay much attention, it was in pretty sad condition, with grind marks all over and the kissaki/yokote was sanded to hell and very round and the whole thing was covered in some gummy old grease. http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... 011004.jpg Anyway, I oiled the blade daily for a few days and the greasy stuff came off and I was shocked...... Boshi, hamon, nie, whole nine yard!!! http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... 052011.jpg So I carefully checked the handle and the retention screws looked loose so I undid them to get the tang out. The rust look pretty new and the nakago had the typical shingunto assemble marking, the marks match those found on the habaki, seppa and the inside of the hand guard thing. http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy19 ... 011002.jpg Now my question is, did they use to make the police short sword blades like the shin gunto, with some machined and some traditional? Or were they all supposed to be chromed blades for the dress uniform and not meant to for fighting at all? Maybe I just happen to own an odd one with an old Wakizashi blade in? It is fairly common to find old blades in type 94/98 and kyu gunto mounts but I have never heard of one done on police sword before......

looks like I got lucky.... the only pity is the missing Kabutogane... but then I wouldn't have been able to pick it up at a good price....