Novitiate

Dear Geraint, Thank you! As a WW2 piece, is it likely to be handmade, or a mass-produced example? Odd coincidence that you are in Cornwall. I have only ever bought one other Japanese sword: a signed shinshinto wakazashi at a jumble sale in Padstow ca. 25 years ago for £45, which turned out to be by Yamato-no-Kami Hidekuni - on the advice of various experts (to whom I owe all the terminology!), I sent this off to be polished and had a shirasaya made. I saw the above in a local antiques shop the other day among piles of other swords and thought it also needed to be rescued. I had some vague idea of finally getting the wakazashi out of the cupboard and putting both on display as a pair, though it sounds like they would be a bad mismatch in terms of period, probably also of quality. Many thanks once again, Richard

Good morning everyone, I would be very grateful for any information regarding the sword pictured below. I can tell you nothing about its history, other than it was part of a large and not particularly selective collection of old swords put together in the UK. This included several shin-guntō, but also many other British and European blades and bayonets, all in a very poor state blade-wise (most appear to have been 'cleaned' using sand paper and buffing wheels). I do not even know if this is the correct forum to post in, or whether the Military Swords section would be more appropriate (if so, many apologies). Any help greatly appreciated, particularly advice re: avenues for further research, should this be warranted. The sword is a fraction over 34" in lenth (measured from tip to tip, as it were); the tang is 8"; the width of the blade at the widest point is a fraction over 1/4". R