Bruce Pennington

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.

Jeffrey, Congrats on the great find and welcome to the hobby! Go through Ohmura's great site to learn about WWII swords: WWII Gunto (military sword) Parts and Names You can click on the "Table of Contents" on that page and find all the Army and Navy, officer and NCO swords of the war and how they look.

I would venture, though, that this blade tip shape is not a standard, or commonly seen shape on a sword found from the war - shobu-zukuri. It would have been something older, civil. Or it was simply something manufactured after the war, as stated earlier, for souvenir sales.

Some of these were made from the halves of swords cut in two after the war.

Just adding a link to Thomas' summary of variations:

Just chiming in to thank you guys for this study, really enjoying it! Sorry I can't help, but keep up the good work!

Sam & Thomas, I cannot remember who coined the terms, but in days-of-old there was a recognition of the version 2 and 2a, the difference being the the style of seppa. Is that something in this list? If not, should it be? Version 2 (old terms) Version 2a (old terms)

Thanks, Geraint. He is an interesting one, as he (or one of them?) sometimes uses a kiku with leaves & stem. I have two that way:

Hi guys! I file kiku marked blades. I have a few blades with Yasuhiro mei, various styles as you might expect. Only one with a proposed date range of 1660-70 and one in the 1700s. I can't find a Yasuhiro in Sesko using these kanji. So, my first question is how do we know about this guy at all? Examples: and What drove me to look into this is a current auction of a blade, kiku, Yoshihiro, and the seller claimed the date range to be in the 1300s. PRETTY sure the kiku wasn't being used that early, but then I couldn't find a reference to this kanji use in Sesko at all. Sorry for the extremely NuBee question. But looking to learn.

I see no images on those links, either.

And a special thanks to the anonymous donor!

On the bright side, that's a good price for one of these. Most of them being sold directly from China are around $150.