Bruce Pennington

A star-stamped RJT blade with mei "YoShu Seiunshi HisaTsugu", according to the website. Seiunshi Hisatsugu is listed in the RJT roster, but I don't see a "Yoshu" in the prefecture list. Wiki says it's "Yamashiro". Is that an appropriate province name to put in my RJT charts?

Just for discussion purposes, concerning the idea that some of the signed blades with finished nakago might have been war surplus: A quote from Mal Cox' Showa Swordsmiths of Aichi Prefecture (Owari and Mikawa): "Blades from the Toyokawa Arsenal were typically stainless steel with an anchor in circle stamp and mostly mumei, but occasionally had a mei of a simple signature. The arsenal was largely destroyed by bombing on 7 August, 1945, with around 2,600 killed, including many volunteers (3,256 bombs were dropped by 124 US B29 bombers over a 26-minute period). It makes me wonder just how many blades would have survived such an attack. I suppose, even if the arsenal was destroyed, a warehouse of blades might have survived. Of course another angle is that the Tenshozan factory was not affected by this as they were located in Kamakura, not Nagoya, and they might have had unused surplus containing these blades. Yet, Masahiro was listed by Cox as working in the Nagoya area, not Kamakura, and the other 3 were in Gifu.

An interesting fake/replica over on this Guns.ru Thread (not the sword at the top, but the second one further down). It's in civil fittings, but the standard Iijima-style fake - Tokyo inspector stamp, but Nagoya bohi. The unusual thing is they put the serial number on the wrong side of the blade. The nakago is wrong and they attempted a mei.

John, do you see any visible way to remove the handle? Photos are hard to judge size with, but by the look of it next to that tag, it looks pretty small. I have something that size (not the same shape) that guys said was some sort of general purpose utility knife.

Update: I checked with the World Renowned leading expert on Type 95s - @Stegel - about this. He says that while we have no documentary or photographic proof, it's his wizened opinion that those blades were pressed or punched out in shape. He owns about 80 of them and their near identical size and shape point to the idea that they were machine punched out in form.

We can say for sure it wasn't a factory paint job. You can see red splotches on the brass parts where the guy that did the job got a tad sloppy. You won't see that on a factory paint job. Now, whether it was wartime bubba or post-war bubba - who knows! I have 3 NCO's that I thought were post-war bubba-jobs, and stripped them. Now, after some further discussions and seeing others pop up, I realize that 2 of them were wartime paint done in the field. I can say I've never seen one that color red before.

We have come at the same issues from opposite directions! I had a sword from my dad, and the more I learned the more I got hooked on the history. And it looks like you came from the other direction, hooked on the history, and found some cool swords! I think most of us have really been blessed by our collecting by the fact that it has exposed us to so much history and the human endeavors of all kinds. I don’t want to distract you from our need for addictive views of your sword, but I do appreciate your angle on early Japanese history leading up to World War II. There are a number of factors that led to what happened as we all know. But your angle is an interesting addition.

Well, unless we can get @Stegel or @Shamsy to enlighten us, I don't think we know for sure how they got the 95s so uniformly the same. You might be right in that idea, but I've never heard nor read about that specific step.

Man, could you imagine a book with all the stuff Brian has stored on the Member Articles page!?! Mal's work on smiths/prefectures, the Stamps and Matetsu, Stegel and/or Shamsy's yet unwritten Type 95 issue, and all the nihonto stuff! Wow! Actually, it might all be too much for a single book.

I, too, would like to see photos of the sword, missing part area, and blade. I have a few blades with black spots/stains and haven't found anything that removes it. They seem permanently ingrained into the steel. Short of a professional polish, I don't know what else would work. So, I just preserve them.

Yes, this is the NCO blade process. A person had to put the steel in the stamping machine, then take it, hold it, while it is hammered into shape, then hold it and dip it in oil to harden. The take it to the polishers who polish them by hand. Of them all, this form used the most machinery, but it wasn't automated. People did the whole thing using machines. It's semantics. To me, "machine made" conjures images of todays assembly-line, automated processes where no people are needed. There are smiths, today, that use hydraulic hammers in their work. Is that "machine made"? How many machines, then, must one use to qualify for the term? 2, 3? SMR used machines to roll the steel tubes and soft core steel rods, the used machines to insert the rods. Then hydraulic hammers to shape them. Do we call the Mantetsu blade "machine made"? They likely used as many machines as the factories did on NCO blades. Sorry for being a pest on this. In reality, the collector term is simply short-hand for "Was this blade made traditionally or non-traditionally?" "Hand made or machine made" means the same thing.

No “Machine made“ is a term that I hate. Yet, it is a common term often used in the sword collecting world. After the China incident the Japanese military decided to go back to samurai styled swords, there was a massive need to produce a lot of swords to replace the old Western style sword. This created a shortage that the industry had to meet. Modern technology with hydraulic powered machines, allowed them to create more swords than they used to be able to do using traditional techniques. Steel cutting machines, hydraulic hammers, allowed Smith’s to produce many more swords per week and per month. Oil quenching allowed them to produce blades , without cracking. All of this in today’s world created the terminology of the “machine made” sword. The NCO blades used the most machinery, if you want to say it that way. They used machines to roll a single type of steel and cut it into workable sizes, that could then be hydraulically hammered. All of this process involved people that worked the machines and worked the blades. None of it was automated. All of the blades were polished by hand and mounted in fittings by hand.

Showato of all kinds and quality had mei. I would say the majority of showato were signed. There are plenty mumei to be found, but they are a minority.

His mei history is interesting, now that I look at it. I have 2 blades, now, April 1940 and August 1940 with the "Nyudo" annotation and the first one, April 1940, posted by @Hs132 has a kikusui on the blade! After 1940, he dropped the "Nyudo" and picked up his kokuin. I have 16 of his blades on file, and all but one, after 1940 have the kokuin. Most are Showa stamped, but 5 (no dates) have the large Seki stamp. Hs132, April 1940 with kikusui

Ah yes! I remember reading about the "nyudo" title a couple weeks ago. At least I got the Kanezane correct! Thanks Steve.

Maybe we can get Brian to move this over to the translation forum. You’ll see a lot more guys there that can read it.

The Jauce title saya Asano Kanemasa, but I sure don't see that. Looks like Kanezane ?michi. @SteveM

I see the helmet, now. But what I really see is a Pac Man with a Mohawk.

I think you're right, Ray. I have a similar one, similar mei, on a Jan '45 blade with Gifu stamp posted by @jamesr back in 2021: Rhett, Could you check near the top for a small stamp? It could even be underneath the Tsuba/seppa set. And you got it - Type 98 Japanese officer gunto (sword). You can see lots of pristine examples on Ohmura's site: Military Swords of Japan - Gunto

Mark, For those of us that can't read Japanese, can you fill us in on what that is?

It's certainly something to keep an eye out for. I don't currently see any other gunto of these two with the Nakano fittings, although many who post about a mei don't show the fittings. So, there are possibly more out there, but just not shown. I know in the case of the AOI Art Yoshisuke, the kaigunto fittings only have an "ichi" stamp on them (no sakura, just the Japanese "1"). Something about the Warrior stamp I've been thinking - As with all hotstamps (kokuin), I have found that smiths who use a kokuin, never use them all the time. There are some smiths that seem to use them slightly more frequently and some (one recently found) that has only one time used a kokuin (to our observations, at least). So, it is a mytery to me why smiths used them sometimes but not others. This may be the case for these Warrior stamps. In comparison, the smiths that adopted a kakihan (inscribed kao) they almost always used them, not always, but almost.

Agreed it "should", but only the Tenshozan blade have it. All the Toyokawa and Takayama forge blades are katana mei.

Guy, over at this Wehrmacht-wards thread, did a great translation of the Ohmura page on Murata Tsuneyoshi. There were 2 things I learned that I had never caught before: "Baron Murata Tsuneyoshi, a major general in the army, was an expert marksman. He developed the famous "Murata gun." Afterwards, he wanted to improve military swords, so he made a prototype military sword out of saber steel (sword steel from Solingen, Germany) in stock at the Tokyo Artillery Arsenal. Because it cut very well, under the guidance of Miyamoto Kanenori and Yokoyama Sukekane, he cut the Swedish steel and Japanese steel into strips in a ratio of 6:4, melted them at 1,500℃, and forged them into a round shape and hardened in oil to complete the blade. In October 1891, during a blade test at the arsenal, he used two blades to successfully cut a pig's skull. Since there was no abnormality in either blade, they were adopted as military swords based on this result. Because it was inexpensive and easy for even junior officers to obtain, it was widely used in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, and it was proven to be a practical military sword that was resistant to rust and had a good cutting ability. Manufactured at the Tokyo Army Artillery Arsenal. The inscription read "Shoju Kanemasa" and underneath it he wrote the four characters for Murata Tsuneyoshi in seal, creating a seal that combines the two characters. The year and manufacturing number are stamped on the back. In addition, swords that he forged himself were inscribed with the inscriptions "Kanemasa" and "Murata Tsuneyoshi." As it did not have a blade pattern, it did not receive any recognition in the sword world.(For more information, see "The Spirit of the Sword" by Murata Tsuneyoshi) I had always wondered why the only smith we see on Murata-to (not zoheito) is Kanemasa. That's because Kanemasa was Murata's swordmith name! Also, the stamped numbers were his "manufacturing numbers"! I don't think I've ever seen one with "four characters for Murata Tsuneyoshi in seal, creating a seal that combines the two characters." Very interesting!

Well Harumph!!! I think @Jcstroud already went down this path (if memory serves). Sesko has no record of Kanenao nor Masahiro (using these kanji). He has: Masanao - Gifu - born 1943 ?????? That's got to be a typo @Markus It's a list of Japanese swordsmiths. If he's there because he was making swords by 1958'ish .... Ok? Ujinaga - Gifu - Born 1922 ... no death date Ujifusa - Gifu - Born 1912 ... no death date I also re-discovered the only blade on file by Kanenao are in souvenir fittings .... which is what led JC to speculate that the name was a changed art name of one of the other smiths from the war. Frustrating.

Nice topic Dave! First time I've seen one folded and sewn like your first photo, very cool. I haven't paid close attention to the ones I've seen over the years to note whether only 1 tassel was cut or 2. I'll have to pay attention from now on.