new member seaks help

[matt l]

Hello im a new member who seeks info. I have recently acquired a sword and would like to get opinions and help with the kanji.

[Jiro49]

Hello, you need to post pictures of the nakago. Also an overall shot of the blade would help as well..

 

Regards,

[matt l]

Im not sure if the right pic was down loaded. 1 more time

[Bruno]

Stainless steel kaigunto imho.

[matt l]

Here's what I know so far. The northern california Japanese society said the kanji was toyo suke soku. Here in sacramento I have a very reputable jeweler that has spectrometer that analysis metal down to the parts per mil. I had the blade and its parts analyzed the blade came back 99.9 percent pure iron with no trace elements. There is grain that runs straight. I will try to ad pics

[cabowen]

Stain resistant, machine made, Naval blade. Not traditionally made.

[matt l]

Any info on the maker.

[Brian]

The "sake" part is actually "saku" and means made. So "made by Toyosuke" if that translation is correct. Mill steel swords, with very little "making" by the smith since these weren't even quenched imho (or were they? Stainless doesn't have a hamon...)

 

Brian

[ROKUJURO]

..... The Northern California Japanese Society said the kanji were TOYOSUKE SAKU. Here in Sacramento I have a very reputable jeweler who has a spectrometer that analyses metal down to the parts per mil. I had the blade and its parts analyzed, the blade came back 99.9 percent pure iron with no trace elements.......

Matt,

 

if you had a 99.9% pure iron blade then it would be worth something because this material is quite expensive (see: http://www.aksteel.eu/de/1-produkte/0-reineisen/). On the other hand you could bend it with two fingers (or three...). So I am quite sure that the jeweler's spectrometer can perhaps tell tomorrow's weather but is not as precise as you would like it to be. If it had measured 99,4% or less, then I would have believed the remaining percentage to be carbon and this would have left some hope for a good tool steel.

 

Stainless steel is another story: to make a corrosion resistant steel you want to have about 17% of chromium in the alloy. If your sword proves to be stainless as it looks to be, then the spectrometer is perhaps only working for gold alloys.

[george trotter]

Matt san,

You don't describe the mountings (Army, Navy?) but this blade definitely looks to be anti-rust steel (we call them stainless) made in great numbers for naval officers in WWII. They are very characteristic and often have a anchor inside a circle stamp (yours seems to have a small stamp above the signature?...what is it?).

Look on the thread here called "Arsenal Stamps" I think there are a few pics of similar tangs.

Telling you anything about the smith is difficult as virtually nothing is presently known about the Navy sword smiths...either traditional smiths or those who made the more common kaigunto like yours.

Regards,

[matt l]

The jewlers company name is shariffs. I just got off the phone with them. The instrument they used is brand new. And cost over $18,000.00 the owner said that the device could read in the mils. Any kind of metal. He said if there. Were any small amount of stainless. Zinc magnesium nickle or anything it would have read it . Its atomic metal signature was fe; which stands for iron fith no trace elements.

[cabowen]

If that machine said this sword is made of pure iron I would be on the phone asking for a refund.

[matt l]

I am just relaying all info I get in true and honest manner. It is a beautiful sword.

[sanjuro]

Matt.

 

What you seem to be missing the point of here is that a sword is usually made of steel, ergo it has a carbon content. Pure iron (at 99.9% it would be as pure as possible), makes lousy swords which tend to bend even under their own weight and cannot hold an edge. Something is obviously amiss with the spectrometer reading or the guy interpreting the reading.

The opinions given here are based only upon photographic evidence, yet they are seldom if ever entirely wrong, being founded in years of experience and a thorough group knowledge of the subject. Military swords and the materials from which they were made in particular are well documented and I would hazard a guess that none of them are made of what is definable as 'pure' iron.

Even so, in the final analysis it is not a nihonto, being a machine made bar stock blade of second world war vintage. It is basically militaria. Little is known about some of the 'smiths' engaged in these factory operations, so nothing in effect can be relayed to you concerning the mei on your sword. However, if you think it is a beautiful sword then so be it.

With no intention of being adversarial here, I'm just telling it like it is.

[hxv]

Matt,

 

I am not taking sides and am not being adversarial. In fact, I doubt anyone on the board is being adversarial. It's a scientific fact that pure iron, and 99.9% is fairly pure, is pliable. You can bend it easily. It's also widely known that any scientific instrument, spectrometers included, need to be calibrated. I would ask your jewelers if they had calibrated their instrument. Try this gedanken experiment: take a bar of pure iron and leave it out, even in the shade and in dry weather, for 70 years, would it look shiny like the tang of your sword?

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[matt l]

I thankyou for everyones thoughts and for sharing your knowledge. I am very much a novice in this area. And have to question what I don't understand till I do. Please bear with me.

[george trotter]

Hi Matt,

Can you tell us if that mark above the mei is a stamp? perhaps we can help you a bit further.

Just as a hint...the higaki yasurimei (criss-cross file marks) are very common on navy anti-rust WWII kaigunto nakago (tang).

While the blade may be pronounced "iron" by the analysis machine, it has some additive which puts it in the class of "anti-rust steel" (if I remember correctly it is sometimes written on the tang "fu-sabi') so yours, being unrusted in the tang I would say has some nickel in the mix. The members are simply trying to advise you that a "pure iron" sword is just too soft for practical use...this blade must have some degree of carbon for hardness and in this case, also some degree of (probably) nickel for its anti-rust properties.

Hope this helps.

regards,