Bruce Pennington

I have never seen an original WWII bag for sale by itself. The new ones, from Japan, range from $50 to $200. Flags range from $50 to $1,000. I'd say you'd have carte blanche to ask whatever you like on such a unique item.

Hm. I had seen the mark earlier and assumed it was simply a flaw in the steel. But after seeing another one of his with a mark in the same place, I tend to agree with you. There are many blades with punched dots, but up to now, they are always (there's that word!) near the jiri or on the mune. This does seem a unique personal practice of some sort.

That's also a cool piece of history, as it has documentation of it's confiscation after the war. Very nice.

Nazar, Looks like you have more of them than I do. I only have 7 with Seki stamp, and 6 with Tan. All 13 have the full mei, though, compared to yours with 2 kanji. I don't see him in Sesko's list, so Slough is my only source for listing him as Nagamura Kiyonobu from Gifu. Maybe @mecox has a write-up about him in one of his articles?

I admit, too, John that I'd never noticed that the 25s were stamped on the hand guard like the 32s.

This one is posted over on this Warrelics thread. Don't know about a smith, yet, might be an older blade based upon the mekugi location. Will update if he posts it.

Thank you for your discussion, Nazar. It’s nice to see you enjoying and growing in your hobby.

Very strange that both sides were ground down to make machi, as if someone was going to mount a traditional samurai style handle.

Hi Galo, Great find, there. Yes, the blade is older than WWII. I cannot tell you how old, but maybe some of the other guys can give you an idea. Those frustrating black stains do not come out without a professional polish. There are a few guys that do it, but it will cost over $2,000. If your friend wants to spend that much we can point him to someone. In the meantime, here is a good page on care and cleaning: Japanese Sword Care

Hi Brian, It's not happening often, but a couple times this month, one just now, I get a notification (bell at top of page), of someone posting a topic in a forum I don't follow. In this case it was "Jrbjag posted a topic Wanted to Buy: Locating spare koshirae pieces - seppa" I don't follow that forum, nor was I mentioned in the post. Not a terrible problem, just thought I'd let you know.

DOH! Thanks, I see it now.

Is this one of those cases where two smiths worked together to make a blade?

This one, Ray? "SUKENAO (助直), Genroku (元禄, 1688-1704), Settsu – “Ōmi no Kuni-jū Sukenao” (近江国住助直), “Ōmi no Kami Takagi-jū Sukenao” (近江守高木住助直), “Ōmi no Kami Sukenao” (近江守助直), “Tsuda Ōmi no Kami Sukenao – Gōshū Takagi” (津田近江守助直・江州高木), real name Tsuda Magodayū (津田孫太夫), he was born in the 16th year of Kan´ei (寛永, 1639) in the village of Takagi (高木) in Ōmi´s Yasu district (野洲郡), he became a student of the 2nd gen. Sukehiro (助広) and was married to his daughter in the third year of Enpō (延宝, 1675), we know date signatures from the eighth year of Kanbun (寛文, 1668) to the sixth year of Genroku (1693), it is unknown when he received the honorary title Ōmi no Kami, the earliest dated blades showing this title in the mei is from the eighth month of Kanbun ten (1670), it is said that he died around the sixth or seventh year of Genroku (1693~94), first and foremost shinogi-zukuri katana and wakizashi are extant, dense ko-itame with ji-nie, also a standing-out itame, suguha, notare, tōranba, notare mixed with gunome, or gunome-midare, in the case of a midareba an Ōsaka-yakidashi is present, nie-deki with a wide, clear and bright nioiguchi, but we also know blades with a tight nioiguchi, the gunome is somewhat more angular as at Sukehiro, at Sukenao, the tama are – if present – not always in the exact middle of two midare elements, the bōshi has an early returning ko-maru-kaeri, from the eighth year of Kanbun (1668) he signed the omote-mei in block script and the ura-mei in cursive script, from the second year of Tenna (天和, 1682) he signed both sides in cursive script, and from the third year of Enpō (1675) onwards he added his family name Tsuda, certain outstanding masterworks of him are of the same quality as the best works of his master and father-in-law Sukehiro, jōjō-saku" Steve, Is there writing on the other side?

Thanks Pip, Like Mal said, it is the larger Seki stamp, used by the civilian Seki Cutlery Manufacturers Association, predominantly between 1942-1944, however a few are seen as early as 1941 and late as 1945. Blades with this stamp tend to be nice, quality blades with attractive hamon (temper line pattern). Values would be as I stated above.

Brett, COVID was mentioned once, but not really looked into. It would be interesting to see prices of the blades you discussed at the beginning, from '93 to 2019 - just prior to COVID. On the military side, the high-end gunto - copper handle NCOs and Mantetsu - were climbing like crazy until COVID hit. Both took a 50% drop over that 2 years, but both are now climbing back up. They aren't back to pre-COVID prices, though. I don't know their '93 prices, so this may not be a good comparison for your discussion.

I use www.militaria.co.za/nmb, and had a moment yesterday, mid morning West Coast, US, time. I had already been on the forum and was simply moving from one discussion to another, when it just hung up. Came back later in the day and everything was fine. Sorry I didn't note more details for you.

and

I cannot speak to the mei, but out of the 10 I have on file, 2 of them were signed on this side, with the Kiku ichi.

A nice leaf mon habaki, posted by @lonely panet on a waki he's selling HERE

Pip, We often see blades made during WWII in civilian fittings, then re-fitted in varying degrees for the military. I've never read, anywhere, an explanation for this. The options are speculative only. But it's likely that civilians were buying swords throughout the war for their own reasons. Then, the military/government comes out with a big public push for sword donations and the sword gets donated and/or sold to the military. Like you suggested, families would sometimes buy a sword for their son, and this could have come anywhere in the range of cheap, to average, to highly upgraded fittings. These style swords sell on ebay roughly in the $1,000 USD range, plus or minus a couple hundred. Final note, the cord on yours is from a sword bag. PS: is that a small stamp above the signature, near or underneath the hand guard? If so, it could give us a probable date range when it was made.

Hi Nick! You have a nice sword there. It is an old family sword refitted for World War II. You might want to post this on the Nihonto forum, they will want photos of the bare, naked blade, a measurement of the cutting edge and a couple of close-up shots of the body of the blade and the blade tip. They should be able to give you a ballpark idea of how old the blade is. https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/3-nihonto/

Yes, it matches all the others I've seen. They appeared to make the blades out of a single steel, probably tempered (?), but no hamon. Which, unfortunately, is the same way the modern fakers have made them, which makes it quite difficult to separate the fakes from the wartime swords made by occupied peoples.

Dang, John, that's pretty conclusive! Thanks for posting this. When I went to file this, I found that I had another one, similar paint job, with a Hidetoshi blade in it. Oddly, it's a different mei. Here's the other one:

FWIW - a 2 kanji mei posted on this Wehrmacht-awards thread. He didn't post blade photos, though.

@Spartan117 Nice example, Alexis, thanks for posting. Definitely the Chinese plum rather than a Japanese sakura (cherry blossom). If you've read this whole thread, then you know as much as we do. Predominant theory is made in occupied areas for collaborating troops.