Tensho

Makes you wonder. One would have to carry a sword for YEARS with constant "rubbing" to wear these down so bad. I personally haven't seen any "standard" sarute close to this amount of wear.

Never saw this one, thanks! Its on Tubi, watching now.

A little overzealous on the auction price considering the damage unrelated to battle damage... Someone obviously removed the tsuka at one point in time, considering its missing a few seppa. Also, one of them appears to be "upside down" and should be on the habaki side. I guess one could argue that they got "blown off" but very unlikely. Verdigris damage on the menuki is a real pita to try and remove. Otherwise a neat piece of history and I can only see battle damaged gunto going up. In the firearms world it definitely increased.

Paul chen doesn't make anything of this low quality. Here is their gunto replica.

Any more photos? The ito is not alternating, which would immediately make me think reproduction.

If that was the case, they wouldn't have bothered modifying the tsuka, seppa, tsuba and fuchi for one. Usually they will just have a leather strap with snap that snaps onto the saya cover, a buckle, or nothing at all.. You can actually see the missing snap on your leather cover(this could have possibly been for a leather tsuka cover as well) The saya would have been modified for the chuso. Either just a notch cut out, or a metal collar with tab to lock it. My guess is the saya is a replacement. You used to be able to find a lot of gunto parts at gun shows. The condition of the blade would lead me to believe it was brought back without a saya or one that was heavily damaged. Here's 2 of mine for reference

The nakago appears to have 3 hash marks inscribed which would correspond to the "3" stamped on the fittings. Not so sure about the saya and combat cover on this. The cover is cut out for a Kurigata on the saya which was removed for the metal hanger. Your fittings are also cut for a chuso but the saya lacks any provisions for it.

I've had this for a while and sword I wanted to mount it on slipped thru my fingers. Asking $225obo including shipping in US. Overseas interested I'll have to figure out shipping costs. Knot itself is tarnished and shows some wear, but is overall in pretty good shape compared to most I have seen. Comes with the shop box that is split on the bottom.

When someone mentions tanker or pilots sword assume they want a lot. Koshirae is interesting/nice and looks like higher grade leather was used for saya cover. Tsuka looks metal wrapped? Tassel looks suspicious to me. Ends seem way to bulbous and tassel itself looks like shoelace too me.

69mm length 64mm width 6mm thick Not sure what that one was about, here's a couple better.

At least yours are signed.

If you find someone please post back. I've been hearing that a lot of the "good" ones who do tsuka-maki only take on higher end work. $200 for David Mcdonald to do a re-wrap on a katana seems like a very reasonable price.

I've never seen one like it, although there has been a lot of "interesting" gunto koshirae coming out of Japan recently. I'm curious whether the saya is wood or metal, there seems to be a outline of a missing reinforcement band on the saya. The hanger is also mounted for the blade to be worn edge up. Its possible it got swapped around though. I have also not seen a hanger quite like that. The tsuka is also strangely carved away to fit the fuchi? Either ways its an interesting piece. Seems like a bit of work to go with this mod instead of a simple snap button and leather combat cover. Thanks for posting.

$20,000 sure seems good to me?

Good deals if you actually get a decent sword. He sold me one with a fukure going through the hamon on both sides and played it off like it was no big deal. It still sickens me to look at it.

To clarify a few things. There is only one mekugi-ana, and nothing on the other side. No hole inside etc. The nakago-ana has been butchered to be mounted on a stand that came with it(a piece of it). But the inside of the nakago resembles this shape: There's a noticeable "belly" and then tapers down like the above and goes down down 19.5cm

My pictures aren't very good. I'll try to take some better ones later today. It looks much nicer and aged in hand. Yes, I agree it is strange and there is only one mekugi-ana. I could've sworn I have seen another tsuka with metal panels that only had one as well. I can't see it as being a tourist piece only because the ito is worn from the palms by the menuki and the fingers on reverse. To me it definitely seems to have been mounted for some time.

Picked this up a while ago. I thought in place of samegawa it was just carved wood. Turns out its copper sheets that is blackened with gold accents. The menuki appear to be dragons with 4 toes. Black lacquered ito which is evidently worn from use and holding. Someone has attempted to "pin" the kabutogane on, but "inside" is also a detailed piece of hammer sheet. Fuchi is unfortunately missing, and I'm not sure what would have been in its place as the bare wood is a height of 20mm. Tsuka is 30.6cm long.

Here's a follow up to what Bruce showed in Dawson's. I was not able to find one with your cherry blossom and the vine design. There is probably a picture of one out there somewhere. I would imagine these were like Gunto in that the person purchasing could customized them to their preference?

Saya looks grooved, which would indicate a stitched leather covering.

Here's one I came across posted on here by kyushukairu