Stephen V

Thank you everyone above. Info greatly appreciated. Cheers

Bruce, sorry these are the only photos that my friend forwarded to me. Grey and Stephen, I love the tic tack you get on this forum bouncing thoughts off each other. Oh and the sword hilt has an attached blue/brown lieutenant/captain grade tassel that looks to be in pretty good condition as well. Thanks for the input, I only have nihonto books here to refer to.

Hi I have been asked by a friend for help in the translation on what looks to be an officer grade WW11 sword. It appears that the tang has unfortunately been given a pretty hard scrub at some time. There are also two stamps on the tang. The top one I think I have correctly identified as Seki but there appears to be a second diamond shaped stamp at the bottom that I cannot identify. I have attached a photo of the inscription and any help would be appreciated.

Great news, I'm going to be back in Japan again this October so will try to get along. Extra interesting for me given that my only Nihonto is a Norimitsu Eikyo-Bizen wakizashi. Been to the museum before, small but very interesting. Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks Chris. As promised I have attached a picture of the side on shot as well. The dimensions are 68.10mm high, 65.72mm wide and between 3.8 to 4.25mm thickness.

Hello all A friend has asked if I could find out a bit more on this tsuba that was on a sword brought back to Australia from the Borneo campaign. The sword itself looks very interesting (I have no pictures yet) it is in a leather covering and the menuki and kashira are of a very intricate design, not standard Gunto issue. The quality of these pieces are in the same ballpark as the tsuba. Possibly a venerated family piece taken to war. The only thing at this stage that I can say about the sword (wakizashi in size) is that the tang is extremely rusty (red rust) and the owner has been firmly told to leave that alone apart from a little light machine oil to stabilze the rust. There does seem to be the possibility of a mei but for now that is somthing to wait to see if the stabilization might give a little better view of what is under the rust. I can also advise that the tang is single beveled and possibly in the kata-Yamagata style. The sword looks to be very tired and in fact would seem to be very roughly over polished although nothing has been done to it since brought back in 1945 so possibly the rough polishing might have been done during the war on a needs basis unfortunately. Sorry about the overload of info with an exasperating lack of extra pictures at this stage. However here is the tsuba, I am awaiting on further pictures of the obverse (there is no mei) plus a side on view and dimensions. I will add these to this post ASAP. I will also post pictures of the rest of the sword furniture and the sword itself if and when to hand. Cheers

I second Brian's thoughts on Koyosan. Not to be missed and absolutely magic especially on a calm snow covered day in the depths of winter. And Nikko comes to mind as well along with the pilgrim circuit on Shikoku. Damn, going to have to go back for the fourth time now!

I also found my one and only nihonto way back in 1965 when on a bottle drive. Came across it in the dirt under a house and the owner said I could just take it because of the bad memories it brought back to him from the war. Turned out to be a Norimitsu Eikyo-Bizen wakazashi dated 1465. Not a bad 500 year old gift. :D

Thank you to both John and Morita-san. Doubt if I would have got this no matter how long I struggled. Once again the board has displayed its excellence. Stephen

Hello all First up I have to ask forgiveness for the low definition of the attached photos but this sword belongs to a friend and at this stage this is all I have to work with. I believe I have got the date correct as August 1941 but the inscription on the Omote is really beyond me. The only part I think I can make out is the second last character as being "made with respect"? If the quality is really too poor to be read please let me know and I will see about obtaining a better copy. I have been told this was a sword surrended at Rabaul in PNG and that it is owned privately and is not for sale. I am also chasing up a good quality photo of the blade itself. Any hints would be appreciated if you would like me to struggle a bit more on the translation myself. Cheers Stephen

David If you want a higher resolution picture of this piece I am happy to send it to you. Just PM me with your email address.

Once again thanks to all the members posting interesting and helpful replies here. Just love this message board. And a belated salutation to Ludolf for the donation I must admit that I always suspected that this was never mounted or meant to be mounted on a blade as it just seemed too crisp and unused. But having said that I still do find it a very nicely executed piece of artwork that I now know was made well over one hundred years ago. My photos just do not bring up the depth of the relief carvings (I'm assuming this was not a cast piece?) and the delicacy of the brass highlighting. When held at an angle to a light source it has a very strong three dimentional look. Am I correct in assuming that the story depicted on both sides of this piece relate to some well known Japanese folk tale? Cheers

Hi All I have not posted here for some time but I am still an avid lurker :D I won two tsuba several years ago (possibly around 2008) in the annual raffle and have been very pleased with them, however I must admit I have no knowledge of the correct terminology of the style, period or school they belong to. I have to firstly appologize to the donor as I am not now sure who the generous member was but if anyone here could let me know a little about this particular tsuba I would be most grateful. The pictures are not really the best and do not do the quality of the workmanship or sublty of the brass highlighting any justice, but that being said they are probably the best I can do given the need to reduce the picture size so dramatically to enable them to be uploaded here. Cheers

Thanks Guys Heading off tomorrow. Hopefully I can fit in these places whilst on Shikoku. Cheers

Hi all I'm off on another trip to Japan next week and I am including Shikoku for the first time. Can anyone steer me towards any places that might be of interest regarding Nihonto (historical, museums, dealers etc) while I am there? Cheers