mauser99

Spot on Shamsy. You described it to a T. The only thing of interest was the sticker. Combat cover was long gone and the carry ring was missing. Lacquer was flaking. Cast rough tsuba and wavy blade over all in decent shape. As I said he didn't want to sell it so there was no sense in offering more than it was worth. 500.00 was it IMHO

Interesting. I wasn't looking at swords in 2008 so I never saw that post thanks. I guess I should have made an offer. The sticker might be rare but the sword was anything but. No sense overpaying and I'd would have had to to pry it out of his hands. Just wanted to save the image and share it.

Hi all. I was at a show over the weekend when an old fellow stopped and was carrying a sword. Not to drag this on any longer I was able to get it apart. The blade was un-marked typical war time made blade nothing special. The blade had no Seki stamp on the tang though which I thought was odd since it appears to have been made there and inspected there. Has anyone seen one of these stickers on a saya ? This would be of course under the combat leather cover so its not easy to see without taking it off. Odd thing is its in Japanese and English ?? Odd I thought. Sword wasn't for sale old guy just wanted some info.

run its fake... As for the rest Im quite excited to get some discussion going here. I own one uber late type. The others are the earlier type.

Looks to be a very nice orig. WW2 period sword. Nothing fancy just a straight up working mans tool. Best to get some oil on that blade to slow the rust. Don't attempt to clean it just get oil on It. If you intend to keep it proper storage is important. An average est. of value as it sits would be 800- 1k usd @ the present time.

I didn't study it all too close. But, all his offerings were suspicious. I did like it at first glance though.

that was my comment there. All I have seen are in the 300,000 range and have a larger font than the Japanese made blades and those are in the low 200k range. The one example with the cloth wrapped grip had the officers tassel and was for sale on ebay and realized 1850.00 The other wasn't for sale just shown as an example and was a wood gripped version.

As far as what's been said. I have never seen an early NCO gunto with wooden saya with combat cover. Yes the last NCO saya's have a composite saya wood body with metal ends. There is a NCO gunto on ebay right now with a leather cover and hanger and tassel and it looks legit.

I guess Im not technical enough. I was just basing it off of lacquered saya with one mounting ring.

YES, there is this one which I have seen many times and other from the same roll I have not. But, that type of sword is seen in these photos.

As with the German navy and air force for that matter. When their war was basically over they were pushed into a standard infantry roll. The same could be said for the Japanese navy. There is a series of famous photos from Life magazine showing a Naval garrison surrendering and there is a pile of swords and there are many single Hanger type Naval swords in this pile. One fellow commented on how this put to rest the controversy over these being wartime or assembled post war.

Wonderfull looking sword. welcome to sword collecting it's a lot of fun...

From what I was able to find out is... Sawa Noboru, Seki city Mino Province. how accurate is this ??? how was he rated ? there are no arsenal stamps on this blade.

that small seki stamp is the arsenal stamp. Its much harder to find one of these without a stainless blade. I have one of each.

here are two I just found on two of my tangs. W mark and Showa stamp on another.

Saw it and was tempted. Id say its a special little sword ?

run of the mill officer swords In standard type98 mounting are selling in the 7-1300 usd range at the moment on any given day. If the sword is complete and you are buying in that range I don't think you are overpaying because that's what they cost. I agree what was said about the kanji as that looks like every late 44/45 dated tang Ive seen.

thank you so much. I wasn't sure what it said but, I assumed the flag makers hall mark ? Not the case.

A buddy of mine gave this to me to research it. Naval flag for sure. Kaji says what ?

I don't miss it much. I liked it because it was a bit different. And for what I traded it towards was a much better item. I found these photos and figured Id share it. The signature I was told on one side was a dedication ? True ?

its there just had turned green from the leather cover.

This is one I bought and traded off before I knew I was going to collect swords. If we only could see in the future. This one had some interesting features. One being a wooden saya with locking mechanism. Not many have that. Leather covered and a combat cover for the grip. It was a little worse off for wear but orig to the sword. When I had it translated or partially translated they said one side was a dedication. Not sure if that's true or not ? Its a seki marked blade that was exceptional clean. There was also some Kanji on the wooden saya.

Thanks for the reply. I know Larry personally and that's why I asked him. I was bidding and it went a bit higher than I wanted to pay even though it was worth the selling price IMHO. I called him to ask him if the seller backed out or was returning it to let me know. That's when he said he had it's twin at the shop. So we worked a deal and I bought it. I was wanting this variant for a while. These Nagamitsu blades aren't star stamped apparently ?

this one is signed . Not sure if you saw that ? This one has three kanji in the signature where my other just has the two. Looking on the sword page there seems to be many different Nagamitsu signatures.

why is it questionable ? Was his signature copied in his lifetime ? Looks very clear and textbook to me. for the novice what is "mumei"