Bruce Pennington

Barry, Hopefully, some of the guys who really collect dirks will chime in, but it is my impression that none of the dirk makers made what I call "real" blades, they all made the "machine made" blade with artificial hamon. When you see one with a signed, real blade, it was a privately owned tanto that was refitted for the war in dirk fittings. I suppose a guy might have gone out and commissioned a custom made tanto in naval dirk fittings, too, but that would be evident if the blade date could be determined. Obviously, a nakago with much age would fit into the refitted scenario.

Neil, Here's an Autumn 1940 Mantetsu in aluminum saya:

That's definitely a possiblity that had not occured to me! Tokyo would be the place where the majority of the outfitters were found, as well as the natural location for distribution to Officer Clubs and sellers.

Great John, didn't have that one! It's a "Nan" stamped, non-Koa, with "W", my second '44 marked so. These muddy my theory that Mukden made these Nan-stamped blades because I'm fairly certain the W inspector mark originates at the Tokyo Arsenal. I suppose one idea is that the Tokyo Arsenal had an inspector working the Mukden arsenal, or Mukden inspectors used the W on authority of Tokyo? I wish I knew more about how that process worked.

I have found that to be true on many of these, including the Mantetsu. Another mystery! Off hand, I can't think of any other inspector stamps that are marked twice on the side of a nakago. I've seen Na and Seki stamps on the face and mune, but not on the same side of the face, twice. Hmmmm...

Matt, As far as I know, they were always short of the needed gunto. Good article on this here: http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/Japanese-militaria/family-short-blades-gunto-688110/ I had always assumed the same thing as you, that our bombing and war materiel shortages had decreased production by the latter years, but this chart on NCO type 95 production seems to say quite the oposite. I don't know about officer gunto production though.

My feelings exactly! I have had a couple of NCO 95's, though, with terrible Bubba paint jobs that I stripped the post-war paint off. I got lucky on 1 which still had its original paint. The other had been completely stripped to the metal, though, and I was left with a Type 95 with no paint at all. So I repainted. It looks too new, and the tsuka too shiny; but it's better than either the Bubba paint (which was all gold, even the blade!), or bare metal. I wouldn't do it with an officer saya, or any gunto with original paint.

Posting, to preserve the pics when the sale site no longer carries them. He states that he won't remove the tsuka in the description. The sale also includes a book written by the general on gas warfare.

I would restore if I could get the seppa right. And I’d rather buy a rewrapped gunto, if professionally done. Gunto were repaired and rewrapped during the war, just as an old blade wore many fittings in its life. As long as the parts are WWII, and full disclosure is made, I’d rather buy something that looks nice than something that looks like junk. But that’s me. I have several spare seppa if you decide to refit. I can send pictures of them if interested.

Sorry for the constant updates, but I've re-arranged the doc a bit to make it flow in a more logical order. Also realized I had no actual pics of basic stamps like Sho, Seki, Gifu, Star; now added.

NIce, thanks Brian - updated.

Thanks Ronnie! I've added it to the doc. Now that we're rolling - the PERFECT Gifu anyone? I have this one, but it's missing the bottom right leg of the crossed swords. (the one on Ohmura's site is missing the same leg, too)

Thanks Trystan. It is good to know the actual names.

Nice find, Neil! I know I'm one of the worst when it comes to speculating on the unknown, and the "aircrew/tanker" gunto is one of the best examples of why we should avoid doing it. Book writers and website hosts (Ohmura) helped create this myth. They are just waki's fitted for WWII. Matt's video is a good example - guys just bought what they wanted, or brought what they had from home. Although, Ohmura admits that crews didn't always pick waki: "However, crews did not necessarily choose a short Guntō. A large majority of crews were doing the carrying of the Johsun-Guntō so that it might understand also with the upper photograph." His site has pics of submariners and aircrew carrying full sized gunto, though he does have a picture of a tanker & and aircrew with shorties. Another term we used, and I've used it often, that I wonder about is the "combat saya", the leather-covered wood saya. Is that really a term from WWII Japanese? Ohmura calls them "formal" and "informal" saya, but I doubt that was truly their style names to the soldiers carrying them, as many, if not most, of the "formal" saya we see today were collected on the battle field.

Now to find that PERFECT seki stamp ....

Glad you mentioned it Ed, I wouldn't have thought of it on this one! So noted, and anotated! Thanks again.

Thanks JP, that's going in the doc!

Thanks Ed, nice one!

Going through my Stamps document, I realized I don't have an actual, good, clear picture of a Showa stamp. I know there are hundreds out there, but I can't find a nice, complete, clear one for the document. This is all I have and woul like something better, please. Help!

Steve, thanks for the presentation! Very nice example. I have that stamp down as "emergency" also, though I don't recall my source, and as being made by/for Chinese collaboration forces. Quite an interesting tsuba! Seen by itself, I would have written it off as a bad Chinese fake! Great piece of history there.

Agree with the bunching, shoved down too far idea on the kabutogane. And I’d add enough seppa as stated. Sounds like a simple fix.

Ooo, so how many variations now?

That is one of the 2 styles Ohmura lists in his type 1 style.

I got to looking at the screws and it's clear the fitter put the screws in to keep the ashi from sliding/moving on the saya.

Well sorry everybody- after looking at a close-up, I realized the original up top is a boars eye, it just has a screw at the top of it which to my poor eyes on my small phone looked like a totally unique pattern. Sorry!