Bruce Pennington

Thanks Neil! This is already revealing something. You and I both have blades marked with "NA". Yours from 1939, number 124, and mine from '41, numbered 184. Only 60 blades were made in 2 YEARS under this "contract line" if I can call it that. Mantetsu was making 400 blades PER MONTH (Ohmura's site). In reading the stories of some various smith's it is said that a smith could crank out up to 80 swords PER MONTH. So my idea that Mantetsu started a series of blades, like "A" 1, and ran that series out a certain amount, then began with "KA" 1, and so on through the katakana alphabet - is not likely. Even if a single Mantetsu smith was assigned a number series, like Smith Bruce makes blades using "A", "KA", "SA", "TA", it seems to me that he'd run through more than 60 blades under one kanji in 2 years time. Making just 60 blades per month, Smith Bruce would run through 12 Katakana lines in just one year! More collecting, and analyzing to be done!

Calling all Mantetsu Owners: I'm doing a very informal survey of serial numbers on Mantetsu blades. I'd like to see if there is a progression of the katakana from year to year, or if they are randomly scattered throughout the years. If you own one, please post the year and serial number below. I seem to recall a woman on this forum that had collected one from each year of production! If you read this PLEASE post your dates and numbers. Thanks to all who help out! Mine: Spring 1941 - "Na" 184

O.M.G. Neil! What a contrast between the mangy looking canvas cover, to the immaculate mint saya!!! What a sight! Thanks for sharing that.

Tom, That's a new one on me! The Type 32s and Type 19's, and any blade made before the 95s had some makings that are not found on the later blades. I assume this is because they had different manufacturers. It doesn't look like a number to me. If I figure anything out, or find someone who knows, I'll update.

Josh, To your question about "type" - The army officer gunto in the first stage was called the Type 94. They normally came with 2 "ashi" or belt hangers, but yours seems to only have one. The second one was removable, and often was, later in the war, so I would still call yours a Type 94. (95 was NCO only, and 98 came later with only 1 ashi)

Steve, Dude - it's "Showa 17 year 12 month - so, December 1942.

Bryce, What a unique piece! Do you know anything of it's travels?

No month. There are many variations they used on the date, from NO date, to just a year, to month/year, to "a day" in month/year, and sometimes "a lucky day" month/year.

Matt, I don't understand what bothers you with the saya. There were many variations of the leather covered combat saya, and were carried by military officers as well as civillian Gunzuko. The wire-type sarute is found on Type 98s fairly commonly. Not as common as the higher-grade sarute, but I've seen plenty. The civilian tsuba is a mystery to me. I understand civilian tsuba on an old blade converted to IJA use, but this is a showa blade. Unless the blade wasn't made FOR the army! I have not heard or read anything about swords made during the war, but made for private sale, not military. Has anyone? Maybe this blade was a private purchase, not inspected by army arsenal personnel, therefore considered "civilian."???

George, I had mixed a memory on that Osaka question - According to Ohmura's discussion, on the Type 95 stamps page, there was an "Ogura Army Arsenal" that was renamed "Tokyo".

Thanks George! I think that's it. Refresh my memory - Wasn't Osaka an arsenal before it was renamed to one of the main ones?

Eric, that's a new one on me, and I don't see it in any of my reference material. Is it on the nakago mune (back edge)?

Thanks Patrick! That's the kokuin for Kanetaka. It can be found in Fuller & Gregory, in a drawing form.

Yeeeowww! Don't do it! The steel is "damascus" steel which is used by Chinese fakers, NOT Japanese. NONE of the fittings are accurate for Japanese. Like the guys said already - it's a Chinese fake of a WWII Japanese sword. The Chinese sell these on fleaBay for 150 USD.

Neil, My all-brown came in at 46cm too! As did one of my Navy and a Field grade tassel. My Company grade was 54cm and 3 Navy ones were the shortest at 43cm!

Neil, Your examples seem to go opposite of what was being discussed about lengths! Your Navy tassel is 54cm vs the 37cm idea, and the Army (and the all-brown) is around 46cm, which doesn't fit the proposal at all?!? I'm out on a work trip and will get home late Friday night. Saturday I'll measure mine and see what I come up with. Hmmmmmm.....

George - fabulous confirmation of Nick's interpretation of this. Wow! How cool to watch actual "breaking news" in our collecting world!!!

Unless you follow Nick Komiya, at Warrelics, you probably haven't EVER heard this before! Nick has translated a regulation change, dated August 1940, that specified the all-brown tassel for use by the enlisted equivalent of the Gunsoku, civilian officials, both the Ko-in (lance corporal) and Hanin-ko (NCO). This is in conflict with the info in Dawson's book which called it a "Late war" IJA officer tassel; however Dawson doesn't cite his source. I've used the email published in his book to ask about this, but it's an email sponsored by the publisher. Anyone have contact info for Jim Dawson so we can pursue this? Further discussion on the page is chasing the idea that the Army all-brown tassel is 51cm long, compared to the Navy all-brown, which is 37cm long! Pictures in the original commissioning of the Type 97 gunto seem to confirm this. Both Dawson & Komiya affirm that civilian officials were authorized to carry standard Type 98 gunto, so according to Nick, an authintic vet bring-back 98 with all brown tassel was one carried by a Civilian official, NOT an IJA officer. The conversation is happening here: www.warrelics.eu/forum/Japanese-militaria/what-were-regulations-army-civilian-employees-carry-swords-701783/ Thoughts?

Guy spotted the typo. Where would we be without him?!

Pictures of the blade and tang (nakago) help in assessing age.

Update 1: page 16, “Kisusi” should be “Kikusui”. Dang autocorrect!!!

Barry, thanks for that link! Excellent! I've bookmarked it for future conversations like this.

Thanks Brian. I’m not sure if I have your email. Could you PM it to me?

I've just completed a document compiling all the info I could glean from various sources about sword and koshirae stamps. I got tired of jumping from books to various websites when I needed to look up a stamp. It's in .pdf format, so I'm going to try uploading. I've also converted it into .jpg (for facebook) but it's in a Zip file which also will not upload, I believe, or 37 individual photos!) Otherwise, PM me and I'll send it to interested collectors via email. Enjoy! Stamps.pdf

Thanks George! With observed ranges like that (103 - 2353) it does seem to be more likely that it was tracking their overall work for the IJA. Individual special orders wouldn't have such a range, I wouldn't think. Thanks for sharing with us!