Bruce Pennington

There is hamon visible in that last photo of the kissaki, so probably highly buffed.

You did well, Kris. We often see spots and stains, especially at the tip, both officer and NCO blades. I think moisture gets in and sits in the end of the saya causing the stains. My RJT blade has even more stains than that.

Posting a photo for the future. Imgur links often go dead after a few years:

Hi Patrick, Could you do us a favor and post a photo of the full length nakago (tang) and a couple shots of the blade? You have a Navy Officer sword, or kaigunto, that had a combat saya (scabbard) originally covered in leather. The leather covers often go missing over time. You can read about them here: Navy Officer Gunto - Ohmura site Here's a good page for caring for your sword: Japanese Sword Care - Japaneseswordindex.com

Interesting! In Tachi fittings. I only have 6 Kanesumi blades on file, and 3 of them are in non-standard fittings - 1 Gunzoku; one Type 95; and this tachi. FWIW the mei of each varies more than "normal", so while this one is the poorest cut, it doesn't surprise me.

I've never read a reason for it, but examples exist both in WWII gunto and blades from the old days. Here's a well known photo of a couple of guys on a sword repair team. Note the longer sword on the right:

That is a beauty, Conway, and a new one for the files, thanks! That makes 15 examples so far. Wouldn't mind getting one of these in my collection some day. Going to have to sell my wife's car, though, to get the cash.

Yes. The navy kyu had black and gold saya. Like this: Working from memory, but the kyugunto came into service due to Japan's efforts to modernize their military, using western weapons as their model. The early models, from around 1880'ish were single-handed tsuka, but complaints convinced the service to move to double-handed tsuka. So, very rough guess yours could be in the 1900-1930 range production. Others may refine that date.

Hi James, Looks like: 兼住 (Kanesumi); dated 1941. The stamp is blurry, but is likely the larger Seki stamp of the civilian Seki Cutlery Manufacturers Association. So, probably a well made showato. Sesko lists 2 smiths by that name that worked during WWII: "KANESUMI (兼住), Shōwa (昭和, 1926-1989), Gifu – “Kanesumi” (兼住), real name Satō Kōhachi (佐藤幸八), born October 10th 1891, he worked as a rikugun-jumei-tōshō KANESUMI (兼住), Shōwa (昭和, 1926-1989), Gifu – “Kanesumi” (兼住), real name Sakō Hideichi (酒向秀市), student of Kanenobu (兼延), he died February 21st 1973" Can we get a couple of photos of the full blade, and fittings, as well as a close-up of the hamon (temper pattern)?

That's an average market value for an officer gunto. The saya was made to be covered by a leather cover. They often go missing over the past 80 years. You can see the remains of the leather retention strap on in the seppa just above the tsuba. The end with the snap is broken off, which is also pretty common as the leather gets dry and brittle over time.

Welcome back, Chuck! Yes, a company grade kyugunto with a cool kamon I haven't seen. You ought to post it on the Help Identify our Mon thread. Is it signed?

No worries, Sara, this is my hobby and I love chatting about this stuff. I started learning about all this when looking for parts missing from my dad's sword. Pretty soon you'll have a cabinet with 20 swords, too!

Kris, Welcome to the addiction! If you haven't already done so, read up on sword care - Japanese Sword Care - Japaneseswordindex.com, and go online for a cleaning kit. You can get them for less than $20. Just google "Japanese sword cleaning kit." Now you need an Army officer sword and a Navy kaigunto!

I'm bad at this, but I see Kaneshige. Here's a couple from the JSI site:

Thanks, Nicholas. I have a friend about to buy one without any stamps and appears to be gendaito. Thought you'd be interested to hear.

The sword style is the Type 98 Japanese officer sword (gunto). You can read up on these on Ohmura's site: Swords of the Imperial Japanese Military

@Nicholas - Is your Kanefusa blade stamped?

Excellent, thanks! Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Dee, Would it be possible to get a full-length photo of that papered example for my files? I also want to put that kakihan in the Stamps doc.

It's simply a case of the Ideal giving way to the real. Oaths and loyalty are beautiful and necessary, but humans are faulty and fallible. One of the most recognized examples is the marriage oath. Swearing before God and Man to be faithful, yet many fail. Swearing "...till death do us part," yet divorce is rampant. Some people, by nature, are idealists. Some simply pragmatic.

Hi Julian! You have quite an interesting sword, there. The all-brown tassel was used by the civilian branch of the military called Gunzuko. You can google that and learn about them, but they did support functions like maintenance, admin., officer training, and many more functions. See Nick Komiya's discussion on the brown tassel here: The All Brown Tassel. But the sword fittings are not war fittings, but for a presentation sword. The style is called "tachi" and was seen during WWII as presentations in various context. My final point is that the signature, or "mei" as it is called, includes a kakihan, or kao, at the end that I have not seen before. There are 6 WWII smiths listed in Sesko's book with the Masatsugu name, but not with this mei. But that is not unusual as Sesko's book does not show 100% of the swordsmiths working during the war. It is possible your sword was the Suishinshi Masatsugu of the 1800's but that would require evaluation of the Nihonto experts. Here is the bio on him: "MASATSUGU (正次), Tenpō (天保, 1830-1844), Musashi – “Kawabe Hokushi Suishinshi Fujiwara Masatsugu” (河部北司水心子藤原正次), “Ushū Yamagata-sh Masatsugu” (羽州山形士正次), “Suishinshi Masatsugu” (水心子正次), “Tatebayashi-shin Kawabe Suishinshi Fujiwara Masatsugu” (館林臣河部水心子藤原正次), “Masatsugu” (正次), “Masatsugu saku” (正次作), real name Kawabe Hokushi (河部北司), gō Suishinshi (水心子), he was the son of the 2nd gen. Suishinshi Masahide and succeeded as 3rd gen. of this lineage but without using the name Masahide, his father died early so he had to finish his apprenticeship under Taikei Naotane (大慶直胤), he also married Naotanes daughter and worked for the Akimoto family (秋元), the daimyō of the Tatebayashi fief (館林藩), but from Edo´s Shitaya-Kachimachi (下谷徒町), he died on the eleventh day of the third month Man´en one (万延, 1860), he was well versed in all traditions and hardened for example a narrow kō-chōji-midare in the Bizen tradition or a chū-suguha- – 573 – hotsure in the Yamashiro tradition, sometimes Honjō Yoshitane (義胤) carved horimono onto his blades, we find also works with a kijimomo-gata nakago, the yasurime are kiri and he mostly signed with a kaō, jō-saku"

Mal, thank you for joining the discussion. My slight modification would be, and strictly just opinion/theory, it was made and sold fully as a civilian sword. Then, a shop or an officer, bought it and had the army fittings swapped in, including leather cover (these quite often never make it to us in this day and age). But that's just my opinion and we all know what those compare to!!! Ha!

Ha! I feel your pain! Been there, done that! I mostly have the terms down now, but will still occasionally have to look one up. It will come. So, others that study nihonto/gendaito (traditionally made blades) will chime in, but I don't see enough details due to the wartime polish and the wear & tear condition to tell if it was traditionally made or not. But then, I'm not very good at that. You have a cool sword, and a significant piece of WWII history. I don't think we've posted care and cleaning tips. Here's a good page: Japanese Sword Care. Google "Japanese sword cleaning kits" and you'll get a plethora of available options, most under $20. There's not many more things more soothing than to sit with your chogi ball and oil rag, cleaning your blade. Seriously, I love it.

@Don sweet I thought Seattle had a Japanese sword club, but I cannot find it. @Scogg Sam, do you know of one? I did find one that meets in Vancouver. You are welcome to find a local sword expert. But we see many of these Damascus blades every year, and it is something used by the Chinese not Japanese sword makers. BTW, the signature on your blade is not Kuneshige. I don't recognize it at all.

Out of 114 souvenirs on file, I have found that 21 of them have sarute. I didn’t do an exact measure of the styles, but they seem to be evenly distributed between high-quality style, plain metal like a type 95, and cloth. No way to know if these were part of the original manufacturer or added later by collectors. Three of them had the all brown tassel.