Bruce Pennington

Yes, I see now. A shadow between the seppa and the tsuba gave the appearance of the double. Quite a beautiful Rinji, thanks for sharing!

Thanks Trystan! Seems odd for a smith to use a kanji of his name like an inspector stamp. The many variations of individualization seem to have no limit. Thanks for clearing that up.

How interesting Neil, I haven't seen a double boar's eye seppa before.

Fascinating presentation Koa posted by Dale (DGARBUTT) on the Translation Assistance forum: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/28095-mantetsu-blade-with-long-inscription/ It's a Spring '41 Koa (still waiting to get the serial number from Dale!!!) with an added inscription: 贈 吉林 哈爾浜 斉々哈爾 各鉄道局 Presented by the railway companies of Jilin Harbin Qiqihar (Thanks to SteveM for the translation!)

It sure would be interesting to know the story behind this presentation sword!!!! I tried looking up the railways and find nothing on them. There is plenty on the East China Railway, the Trans-Siberian, and South Manchurian Railways, that all ran through these 3 cities. I suppose like most big businesses, there must have been original small railroad companies in each city that were swallowed up by the larger operations. Or could this be from the managers of the rail operations of the large companies based in the cities listed? And of course - Who was it prestented to?!?!

Dale, I can't wait to hear what the inscription reads! And, yes, I would dearly love to have the full serial number on the back edge (nakago mune). It will require removing the habaki, as there is usually a kanji underneath, to get the full number. Thanks!

I would love to see some of the extremes. It's the one that I often call "fake" on, and then it turns out to be legit, so I could use some education on this one.

I'm with Paul. That Tokyo inspector stamp beside it and the contractor stamp are harder to fake and they look right. Steve (Shamsy) says he's seen many variations on this stamp, so as long as the rest of the gunto look right, which it does (so, ok, the Tokyo stamp on the blade by the serial number looks weird) I think you've got a good one there.

I didn't see the need to start a new thread, so I found one on the same topic: I've got 2 kaigunto with really loose seppa, so I ordered some from Crimson Mist. The '43 Sukekuni, seki-stamped blade, would only take 1 seppa. I know it's non-standard but it snugged them up nicely. I like it much better than the really loose feel it had. The other is a koto era blade retrofitted for a kaigunto. The fitters must have been in a rush becuase the wood liner of the tsuka isn't wide enough to let the tsuka slide all the way down to the seppa, leaving a gap. They actually put the mekugi in at a steep angle rather than take the time to fit the liner properly! I tried filing the inside of the liner, but I cant' get it opened up enough to improve the fit, and I'm not going to try unwrapping the tsuka to do the job. SO, I fit a seppa in and snugged it up. Again, non-standard, but the look and feel came out nice. On a sidenote, the inexact fitting of this Tsuka, makes me think it was grabbed by a fitter from a pile of pre-made tsukas rather than custom built for this blade, which could indicate this was one of many blades collected from the public campaign to gather family blades, rather than a guy that showed up with his owm blade to get it refitted. I think a custom job would have fit better.

Geez! I had one of these and didn't realize it until today as I was doing some work on this one! It's on a '43 Sukekuni, Seki stamped Kaigunto. The knot is very well tied with the ends secured inside the knot. After seeing the differing methods of knot tieing, it makes me wonder if they are done in the field by the owners, or was there simply no set standard at the factories for tieing the knots?

Rick, With the single picture you've given us, there's no telling what the "1903" is referencing. There are often assembly numbers painted on the tang, that could be the source of the number. Often, the metal fittings around the handle and hand-guard have numbers stamped on them. But your year of manufacture, like the previous guys said, is in the late '40 to mid-'42 range as that is the roughly 2 year period the Showa stamp was in use.

Thanks Dave! The “navy” version looks like a fit to me. That’s going into my Stamps document.

Just curous why the relative believed Hisao Tani to be the original owner. Do you know?

Could anyone give me some insight to the meaning of the bottom kanji. The top is obviously the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal inspection stamp. I've been told the bottom one is litterally "That One", but I doubt that's the meaning or reason for it. I've been finding some stamps that are the first syllable of a city name where the sword was made. Any chance of this?

Jeremy, There are good examples here: http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/Japanese-militaria/ija-type-95-nco-sword-info-228172/ And here: http://ohmura-study.net/957.html

Edward, Yes, definitely the Toyokawa Arsenal. Tenshozan had their own stamp, but I honestly don't know enough about them both to know if they worked together. Can you fill me in on the second stamp you refered to as "the other" stamp? It almost looks like a Ren stamp, but not exactly. Do you have any references to other posts about this one? I agree your mon look older and original comopared to the new reproductions.

Both the double-struck on the face of the nakago and the one on the mune are "Na" of the Nagoya Arsenal. The one on the mune is just struck incompletely with the top portion of the Na partially missing. Mune stamps are more common than people think. Big discussion here with several examples: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/25687-mune-stamp/?hl=%2Bmune+%2Bstamps&do=findComment&comment=279910

Hmmmm .... someone just shared with me pictures of, and his experience with, modern reproductions of this very same mon. SO, like all things gunto - one must take each case for it's own merit. It appalls me that so many aspects of our hobby are faked and copied! There seems to be no end to it. As for the two on this thread, they both seem to have real age, where the repros I saw were shiny new. Yes, age can be faked too, so the call must be made by those in possesson of the item, as always. To my original question, I had just never seen the mon used at all and wondered if others had. My gut feel is that fakers don't create something new, they copy something original. So, for a fake market to exist, I would tend to think that there were some real anchor mons out there in the first place. Like Fuller's paratrooper/aviator sarute, they must be quite rare, but likely exist or else we wouldn't have replicas.

Do you have a picture of an example? Always open to possibilities! Like the unique emblems on Fuller's "paratrooper" guntos, guys were known to personalize their gunto and it is likely that koshirae makers offered items that might be of interest to like-minded officers wanting to jazz up their purchase.

Interesting mon! You might try the Translation Assistance forum here: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/15-translation-assistance/

Yes, I like it! Good idea!

Wow, how beautiful. Ohmura's site should have this! Did you catch the statement that it was made shorter due to his being the Chief of a tank regiment? "And It Is Somewhat Shorter Because Spring Rao Was A Chief Of Tank Tank Regiment."

Clears up my concern that it was a post-war Bubba-job! And what's with the end of the tassel? It seems to be joined in a unique way:

John, As you find more of these, it's beginning to have more of a feel that these are wartime original. Not a certainty, of course, but it's creating the possibility.

Thanks Trystan, very informative! Sorry about the "I". I just don't know how to do that with my keyboard, but I've got it now and can copy/paste "工", ha! I've updated the Mantetsu Study Charts with tabulations on blades with Nan, Ren, Ren/工, and W stamps. Out of 32 '43s, 14 have Nan stamps (and 1 '44 has it) Of 11 '44s, 8 are Ren stamped, with 3 Ren/工. I have 8 blades W stamped - 4 '42 (all Koa), 3 '43, and 1 '44 If our theory on the source of the W stamp being the Tokyo Arsenal finishing blades supplied by Mantetsu, as per Nick Komiya's document, it's clear the practice was in place a couple of years before the document's date of 1944. I suspect there were orders made in the previous years, and this single document is the only one we have knowledge of. The existance of Koa Isshin blades in '43 & '44 raise the question of WHO was making blades with the Nan and Ren stamps. One option is that the SMR Mantetsu factory was making them all, and for some reason was making both Koa and non-Koa blades simultaneously. Another option is that, per Ohmura's theory, Mantetsu had taught the Mukden arsenal to make blades the Mantesu way and blades marked with Nan, Ren, and Ren/工 are Mukden manufactured. Option 3 is that Mantetsu was supplying unfinished blades to Mukden just as they were to Tokyo, and the finished blades were stamped by Mukden accordingly. BUT we have 2 '43s with BOTH a Nan and a W stamp, and 1 '44 with both stamps!!! This COULD bring us back to option 1, with SMR Mantetsu making them all and using Nan, Ren, Ren/工, and W stamps for reasons yet unknown. So, still very little facts, and much speculation, but it's been fun chasing it down. Document 3.0 attached.mantetsu serial numbers (1)-converted.pdf