Bruce Pennington

Marcin, The army bought and collected swords from smiths all over the country, whether they were RJT qualified or not. Also, many private shops were making gunto fittings and selling gunto on the market.

Interesting. Also, the stamped number 26 would normally be seen on the seppa, as well. Well, Sara's dad brought it back, so like many others we've seen, we're left with a couple options. Either he found a sword that needed a tsuba and found a tsuba to put on it, or it was a replacement 'in the field.'

Interesting with the "P Y" stamped in it! The "N" in diamond is an unidentified shop logo.

Nice one, Calabrese!

More of a question for @PNSSHOGUN. I'm usually wrong when talking 94/98 differences.

That's an interesting question, Mal. I have seen these in a wide variety of mixed civil/army fittings, and always have assumed they were carried by regular army officers that had brought their own sword from home to be fitted out for service. Or, I've imagined sword shops buying civil swords and re-fitting them with a variety of military parts to sell to officers. However, I've never actually heard or read who was allowed to carry them. I checked Ohmura's pages for this style. Sounds like he said that both officers and civil employees carried them: "It is checked with record or a photograph of those days, the soldiers of each class attached the suspension mount to the scabbard of a Uchigatana-mounting, and covered by leather, and did the carrying as a Guntō. Army civilian employees were also doing the carrying of such a Guntō. Generally, the color of the army leather cover was brown and the navy leather cover was black." In my survey of Gunzoku swords, I've found an equal number of fully gunto vs civil re-fit with the Gunzoku tassel. Part of the difficulty comes with these civil re-fit ones when they come with standard officer tassels (blue/brown and red/brown), because for years, the Gunzoku were permitted to carry regular officer's gunto with tassels. It was only the Uniform Regulation change of 1940 that assigned them the all-brown tassel.

John is selling a second/removable haikan (belt loop), if you are thinking of adding one

One thing that you learn after hanging around World War II swords is the phrase “never say never, never say always with World War II swords“.

Crimson missed military has some army menugi for sale: Miscellaneous parts

Ohmura’s site is free and has over 65 pages of fabulous examples of all the versions and types of WWII Japanese swords: Military Swords of Imperial Japan another great site: Japanese Sword Index you will find a page on the care and cleaning of your sword on that side as well.

I've had someone on Warrelics ask me what a fair market value is for these. I realize it likely depends on style, age, condition, etc. but I don't follow them and was hoping someone could give me a range of pricing for the guy. Thanks!

Isn't it as simple as the blade was re-fitted along the way?

An interesting one posted by @Francis Wick HERE. Waiting for translators, but it seems the officer might have written his surrender info on the cavas cover:

Francis, Can't help with the writing, but just wanted to say that blade would be quite stunning with a professional polish!

That was a really good refresher, thank you, Thomas! Marcel, You nailed it. See Thomas' observation from the discussion in the other thread (click on the photo and it will be clear to read):

Really nice sword, Eric! Are you going to have the tsuka re-wrapped? Curious what causes you to call your fittings Type 94? I see the centered chuso. Are there other indications? Not arguing, just curious.

John, don’t know if this is what you were looking for an artificial leather . It’s on an ersatz sword Don’t know if it’s imitation or not

Thanks, Ed! Looks like that is our third one, now. How about checking that leather to see if you think it is real leather or imitation leather. We have another conversation going on looking for examples of the late war imitation leather. The nakago is surprisingly well made! Even has the feather file marks. Interesting that it has to holes as if it was made for an RS model.

Where did you find that one, Marcel? Here is one I have on file. Found on what Fuller called an "ersatz sword." "The tsuba of an “ersatz” sword possibly made in Manchuria in the last months of the war. 造 could be short for 造兵 which in Japanese apparently translates to "Arsenal."

Oooo, could be

It would be an interesting thing to find if the Tokyo RJT smiths blades had the stamped numbers, especially with the katakana combination, and then Nagoya RJT smiths had painted the numbers like John has shown. John, have you seen any other letters other than “A“?

Sorry buddy, but David is correct. This is a fake.

Good question John. Any of your ideas might be the right one. They might have all been part of a batch order given to a particular sword shop to outfit and the numbering system might have been done by the sword shop. But anything is possible. Interesting that you identified a particular system on multiple blades!

I have seen quite a few, and several where the tsuka was just plain wood, covered tightly in leather. The tsuba might be a civil one.

Marcin, The black army saya is fairly common. At first glance, I often think "Aha! Another souvenir.", when it's really just another army saya. The metal fittings aren't gold gilded.