SteveM

I couldn't help but post this. In looking for other examples of an Ōmura Kaboku mei (from another recent thread), I came across the following sword. This sword uses the same 焠 kanji that was used in the above sword. I guess it is not as "highly unusual" as I first thought. I'm wondering what exactly is the work of the person doing the 焠 . It seems to imply not just hardening, but the quenching as well, as if one smith forged up until it came out of the water, and handed the unfinished blade to another smith for final shaping. Would that be accurate? http://www.tokka.biz/sword/kaboku.html Funny note: The dealer has misidentified the kanji as 焙 (aburu) well, funny to me,

中心　＝　Nakago in this case. 中心 is a variation of 茎. 押形 = one would indeed think oshigata. Seems to be the most obvious candidate. But the 押 part of oshigata doesn't look right. No idea what it could be.

I think 象嵌　zōgan

There is a slight mistake on the certification papers 治郎左衛門　 →　should be 治部左衛門

銃砲刀剣類登録証 
Firearms & Swords Registration Certificate
 登録記号番号青森第一〇七〇号
 Registration Number: Aomori #1070
 種別: たち 長さ二尺五寸二分、厘
 Type of sword - tachi. Nagasa 2 shaku 5 sun 2 bu - rin. 
 反り -寸二分五厘 　目くぎ穴　弐個
 Sori - sun 2 bu 5 rin. Mekugi ana: 2 
 銘文 表幕府士川井久幸七十五歳作 Mei: Omote - Bakufu-shi Kawai Hisayuki made at age of 75. 裏 萬延元申年十二月
 Ura - Man'en Gan (shin/saru) Nen, December.
 文化財保護委員会
 Cultural Properties Committee
. 昭和 二六年六月二六日発行 Issued on Shōwa 26th, June 26th Cleaned up the ragged bits, and fixed the kanji for 萬延

Hello Arnold, you mean, for example, 七十五 vs 七五? I have three registration certificates, and on all three the length of the sword is noted as the latter. In other words, the middle 十 is omitted. 62.5 centimeters is written as 六二.五 センチメートル. (The dates are all in the teens, so no help there.) It doesn't strike me as particularly unusual for the date to be rendered as 二六 rather than 二十六.

It's upside-down, but it says 工藤静夫 KUDŌ Shizuo (a man's name). Sorry, I don't know anything about the tsuba or the other parts. Hopefully somebody else will chime in.

It is Fujii 藤井, just a very, very stylized version of it. Check out the thread here (which, despite the topic name, is in fact a Kaneoto blade): http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/4071-kanenobu/ The tag says 通譯班　tsūyakuhan (translator division)

The registration place is noted as Aomori (青森) The number of mekugi ana is noted as two, using the alternative kanji for two (弐) , which you sometimes see on official documents, and is sometimes used in order to reduce the risk of tampering with the numbers. 甲 should be 申, and refers to the Chinese zodiac year. Finally, I think the registration date is the 26th of June, not the 6th. Bear in mind the age is inscribed on the sword, and so the registrar faithfully copied what was on the sword (i.e. 七十五歳, or 75 years old). The other numerals are written on the registration card, and so its not strange that they might be rendered differently from the way the numerals are inscribed on the nakago. Edit for Axel: If all of this is flying over your head, it might be useful for you to check out the kanji glossaries under the Research button at the top of this page. Lots of good info in there.

Could be for the Totsukawa clan? https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%81%E6%B4%A5%E5%B7%9D%E9%83%B7%E5%A3%AB 菱に十の字 or 菱十印 http://www.vill.totsukawa.lg.jp/www/contents/1109233354984/index.html (But that is such a specific mark - unique to that one clan - my guess is that the "cross in diamond" on your sword is probably just a variant on the "cross" motif mentioned in Joe's post above).

I think probably "Raijin" would be the proper pronunciation (instead of kaminari kami). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raijin

No - sorry, I'm in the same boat as you. But, if its any consolation, I think you are right, somewhere between 20 and 100 years. And the difference in value (be it 20 or 100 years) would not be huge. It is a souvenir, and, if you are interested in Japan it will have some value for you as a Japanese souvenir, plus whatever sentimental value you give to it. As an antique or an artwork, it wouldn't be terribly valuable.

Hello Salvatori, It's not an ukiyoe Japanese woodblock print. Maybe some kind of silkscreen? Anyway, I think it's a typical boy's day theme - sometimes you see this image on a scroll hung up in the house for boy's day. It is representative of the wish for boys to grow up to be strong and wise and virtuous.The samurai is wearing Heian-period gear (or, I should say a modern artist's rendering of Heian-period gear). The image is evocative of Minamoto Yoshitsune, a near-mythical folk hero from Japanese history. If you do a Google image search for 吉祥武者 (kichijō musha) you will find similar images. I can't make out the artist's name, but the theme is a common one.

I'd be interested to see if there are other examples of the 作之 coming after the location instead of the smith's name. Seems unusual.

Probably a good time to say again that the sword is always more important than the inscription. A funky inscription only slightly mars the quality of the sword, and often it is a defacement that can be remedied (by removing it, basically). So bear in mind my comments are in relation to the engravings only, and I am not enough of a sword enthusiast to comment on the sword itself. Also, there are a lot of funky signatures out there, and one strange kanji, one oddly-placed fragment, one obscure usage, doesn't attract my attention too much, other than as a curiosity for future reference. But when a number of these anomalies appear, it usually doesn't bode well for the authenticity of the signature. So, with that throat-clearing, first the good news: 濱 is the old version of 浜, so Jussi's post above is a ray of hope extended to Davis. 江府 indeed refers to Edo/Tokyo, which is in Musashi province, so that is another thing that helps support this line of inquiry. (江 may indeed be pronounced e or kō, but I think when it is combined with 府 it is always kōfu. This pronunciation exists today in the Tokyo ward of 江東区　kōtō-ku). I still find it weird that the saku and the kore are following the location, but it wouldn't be the first time I've seen something odd like this. So... unusual and suspicious in my opinion, but could be overlooked if everything else is in order. (Perhaps the engraver was affecting some kind of kanbun - Chinese style - usage??) For the cutting-test signature, there is another possibility for the problematic kanji after 二ツ胴, and that is 裁断 (saidan), but the kanji on the sword looks nothing like 裁 or the archaic version of 裁 that is seen on swords (so archaic that I can't find it in the IME...will look for it later, basically it is a combining of 戈 with　隹　- for the kanji buffs out there you can see a good example here http://kourindo.sakura.ne.jp/yamano.html ) Edit: Found it - 截 Regarding the balance, you can see the four kanji up until 二 are biased towards the left of the shinogi. After that they are biased to the right. The final 之 leans back to the center. This feels and looks sloppy to me, particularly with the strange kanji there. Edit: Its the cutting test balance that looks bad to me. The overall balance of the signature on the other side looks OK. Finally, using a sword from an obscure smith for a cutting test and subsequent inscription seems to be a stretch of the imagination. Particularly if this was a very late Edo period sword. So, any one of these by themselves I think can be excused. Taken in totality, it gives the impression that someone was trying to tart up the sword.

I think you are thinking of hanko or inkan. Kao don't normally use tensho. Historically they used sōsho (草書) but its such an individualized thing I don't think you could call it any particular style - not in Edo times, at least. The Japanese wikipedia site is very informative on this, but unfortunately the English mirror entry for kao is very weak. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E6%8A%BC There is a video that might be of help in the middle of the site here http://www.geocities.jp/whiteprince1jp/kou.html Another Japanese site has a depiction of current prime minister Shinzo Abe's kao, and it might help to visually understand it (although I couldn't verify that this is Abe's actual kao). https://argusakita.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E7%BD%B2%E5%90%8D%E3%81%AF%E7%B7%B4%E7%BF%92%E3%81%8C%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%8B%EF%BC%9F/sign-abe/ If, after all of this, you are still in the dark, give a shout. Edit: Try this site, it might be more useful. http://www.hanko-concierge.com/14375399383149

於江府作之濱田正行　Oite Kōfu saku kore Hamada Masayuki 於千住二ツ胴囗之　　Oite Senju Futatsu Dō ? kore It may be surplus to your requirements, but I think both the signature and the cutting test engraving are a bit problematic. The overall balance of the cutting test signature is a bit funky, plus the odd kanji after 二ツ胴 almost seems like a mistake, as if somebody tried to engrave something but gave up halfway through, or tried to change it. Normally one would expect 落し (otoshi) or 切落とし (kiri-otoshi) after the futatsu-do. The smith also seems to be so obscure that he's invisible to Google. And usually the saku kore goes after the smith's name (or at least the "saku"). Odd that it should appear after the city/province name. Sorry I couldn't have any good news for you.

Not three tens, rather a variant of the kanji for 30 (卅) 昭和卅四年七月拾八日 Shōwa 34, July 18th.

藤静壽 and 楽水軒

Agree with Morita-san above. The words aren't a slogan, they are a commercial brand. Seems to be the Sōkin brand (not sure how to pronounce it as I think it is a Chinese brand). https://www.kaibundo.net/products/detail.php?product_id=1924

"Simple" would be better than monotonous. There is a bit of built-in negativity in the word monotonous that is not intended here, I think.

Yes, Tsunehiro with an old style "hiro" 常廣

銘　めい　 Or, at least that's what I think it is. And the two above it should be 脇指 わきざし, but the top kanji looks nothing like 脇 so I'm slightly uneasy about saying for sure that's what these kanji are. At any rate, these are the kanji I would expect to see in this position on this type of document. This is just ordinary handwriting, as opposed to the pre-printed (and easy-to-read) letters of the certificate. I don't think the person who filled in the form was trying to affect any kind of artistic or calligraphic style. (But my guess is that the person who is in charge of filling in these blanks has some training in calligraphy). If its any kind of style its called gyōsho (行書). Wikipedia translates this into the very-unpoetic and rather pedestrian "semi-cursive script". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-cursive_script

And the certificate was issued on February 5th of this year (2015).

「金魚遊図」 Picture of goldfish at play Can't get the artist's name though... And its a weird way to write 金, with the two strokes appearing on the upper half of the kanji instead of the lower half.