Bruce Pennington

Nice work, Thomas! Interesting read. You are the Master Researcher -

Ok, thanks, Will. You can try posting the sword for sale on the NMB For Sale forum. You can click on a few of the posts to get an idea of how to present and list it. https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/130-swords-and-edged-weapons/ Otherwise, most guys would post it on ebay. There are auction houses that sell stuff, too.

Thought of this thread when I read this discussion of Meiji 19 Uniform size Changes on Warrelics. In the discussion of why there were more sizes added to the Type 38 uniforms, Akira Komiya said this: "As for sizing, I believe it is reasonable to assume that the army decided to enlarge and add additional sizes to the Type 19 uniform by the 20th century as the Meiji era was a time of rapid growth of Japanese physique. According to an anthropological study based on exhumed remains, it is said that Japanese started to grow smaller in stature after the Heian period (794-1185) and reached rock bottom in the Edo Period (1603-1868). Scholars generally attribute this to 2 causes, one the taboo of eating animal flesh due to the teachings of Buddhism and the interbreeding of the populace due to restrictions on movements of particularly farmers. The first 2 charts I attached show the average heights of adult males over the ages based on excavated remains in the Kanto area and you can see that it reaches the lowest of 155cm in the early Meiji era, meaning that they probably reached maturity during the later part of the Edo era. The 2nd chart shows the heights of students and you can see that the average height of 20 year old men grew by 1.5cm between 1900 and 1910 from 160.0cm to 161.5cm, which was also a 6cm growth from the Edo era. Because the eating of animal flesh was an alien concept to Japanese but was considered essential by the government for maintaining a strong healthy military as well as to appear enlightened in the eyes of foreigners, the government, particularly the military, made every effort to devise dishes which would make meat palatable to the populace; among the most famous of which are curry and sukiyaki, the former said to have been devised by the navy. As for the sizes of Type 19 tunics, I never even gave a thought to such until now, but checking 2 of my tunics, I noted that unlike the later model uniforms, size information were not an integral part of the issue stamps but were added separately in vermillion colored cinnabar. One of my tunics is stamped 小ノ大, Large Small Size and the other, 小, small. I will attach photos of one of my Type 19 tunics with the former size marking which belonged to a corporal in the 9th Infantry Regiment. With the very limited samples available to me, I can't comment on the number of sizes the Type 19 uniforms came in." Here is a chart he included:

I have a blade on file signed Kanematsu Kanetatsu, but none with just Kanematsu. Could be one of those guys that changed their mei over time. Will, Do you know the history of this gunto? How did your father get it? This is an interesting gunto, in that the tsuka (handle) might be a replacement. There was no hole drilled through the eyelet in the kabutogane (end cap) and there is no chuso (locking latch). It appears new and unused. Also, the kabutogane has little of the fine detail normally seen, which is something we often see in late-war fittings. In an article about the field repair teams, they stated that the majority of their work was due to broken tsuka, so I think this is possible in your case. Unless, of course, the gunto was simply missing the tsuka in years gone by and someone along the way found one to put on this.

Thanks Mal. So, it became the Tokyo 1st Army Arsenal after 1940, if I read it right.

Sheesh! The story grows. So, what/where was the Akabane Arsenal? Online searches are all focused on the post-war confiscation of swords. I cannot find anything on the Akabane Arsenal of the 1800s. @Kiipu @mecox

Excellent, thanks, Tom!

Oh! Yes, I have 8 Kanemasa blades with numbers from 1889 to 1893. Mostly Murata-to in kyugunto fittings. I had this one in the chart, but didn't have photos for some reason. The larger number is a "5" 5 331

Tom, is this in army fittings? Why would there be stamped numbers on a blade from the 1800s?

Adding a link to a thread started by @Hector Sam brought to our attention that there are numbers stamped on the inside of the clip. Hector and Ian had numbers stamped there as well. Sam's "8" Hector's "7" Ian's "2"

Thanks, Marcin. Curious - what is a "napa?"

Thanks, Chris, looks like a really nice sword!

Can you post more shots of the tassels? The appear to be faded Field grade.

Hello K, You might want to update your title to include "kaigunto" as this is a Navy officer sword. There are people who are looking for kaigunto, and the added word would help yours show up in online searches. They are worth more than Army gunto, in general. Yours also has the upgraded shark skin on the saya, which looks nice. Good luck with the sale!

The acid etching is something and Joe Bloe and do which gives an appearance of a full polish to the untrained eye, without spending thousands of dollars for a real polish. And as an FYI, all the fittings, not just the tsuka, are Rinji Seishiki (Type 3; Type 100; Type 44; etc; etc).

I see why you're thinking Mantetsu - that last kanji on the second photo is "Spring" and 90% of Mantetsu dates are Spring. In actuality, though, there were a few other smiths that used seasons, too.

Yes, I think it was a late-war invention. That Masanao was 1943, so in my head not so "late", yet the Uniform Regulation change, which allowed these sort of changes, came out in 1943.

Here's a late war kaigunto I posted on a Warrelics thread Late War Kaigunto Discussion

Matt, Still searching, but I have these 3 already: Posted by @Tonyatm HERE. He doesn't show it seperately, but you can see it's one piece: When he shows the tsuba/seppa set, there is only 1 small seppa: This one is on an Army Type 98, found at an auction site, with a zohieto blade: This one is on an upgraded kaigunto with a 1943 Masanao blade: It's a little blurry in zoom, but you can see the edge of the seppa sticking out:

Sure, I like full length shots of both sides of nakago and maybe a shot of the blade and fittings? Thanks!

Rob, Still hard to say, but I'd lean toward both of these being post-war souvenirs. You can read about them in this article: They used to sell for $450 USD, but prices have been going up lately, say around $800. Most of the time, sellers do not know what they really are and are selling them as Navy swords, which garners quite a higher price. Matt, I'm short on time, right now, but will find them later today and post, unless someone with good searching skills (don't want to name names - @Kiipu) beats me to it.

Here is a photo provided by @Jcstroud that is quite similar to Rob's photos, and this one is from a souvenir Waiting for more photos from Rob, but I'm leaning toward his being a souvenir, too.

Rob, Can you post photos of the full nakago, both sides, and one or two of the rest of the fittings? We have on file a Toyosuke, anchor stamped stainless blade in a T98 with leather cover Army gunto, so it is possible this is a late-war rig. The one-piece seppa/fuchi, as well as black fabric ito, has been seen on late-war gunto, so that by itself is not a clear indicator of a souvenir. The non-gold-gilded metal fittings lean toward a late-war gunto ..... HOWEVER, we have a couple of worn, ungilded souvenirs on file. The wear and tear would also lean toward late-war gunto, but we have one or two souvenirs with clear wear and tear as well. The large, think tsuba has the look of the souvenir tsuba. I tried searching for actual late-war gunto to see if any had this thin, round tsuba but couldn't locate any (I'm not good at searching, though) More photos would help, especially if there is a 2 digit black number painted on the nakago.

You will sometimes see a number with an added zero on Type 32 saya drags after they have been back to the factory for a refurbish/repair, but never on a Type 95.

This is the first time I've seen the stamp on a Yukimune blade. I have several Masafusa and Kaneshige, and one Kunimichi.