Marking on Kyu Gunto

[Lebo14]

As a newbie to this area, I was wondering if I could get some help on the markings on this kyu gunto sword. It was a bring back from World War II. Thank you in advance.

My bad on the Name.

 

It's David nice to meet y'all.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Your name is required on each post, per Brian's rules. Welcome to the forum.

 

Ken

[Jean]

David F.,

 

[Stephen]

its a number easy to look up

[David McDonald]

Dear Stephen

 

Easy but.... I thought you were talking about a cardinal number and thought

I knew them so had to look. No not the cardinal number.

 

So looked up 100 and then 1000.

 

Is this it?? 千

 

Ok so I think I found it but what does it mean. I have never see this on a sword

before????

 

I cropped and rotated the image.

 

later

david mcdonald

jswords@mcn.net

 

its a number easy to look up

[george trotter]

Actually, it is the katakana character for "mo" (just a sound, no meaning) used to write sounds, foreign words and names and such like.

If the arsenal guy meant to strike it twice it says mo-mo...which has no meaning except that in kanji or Japanese hiragana script it would mean "peach"...as in Momotaro, the fairy tale.

I think it is most likely an accounting mark as in Showa times even gendaito gunto blades are found with a katakana symbol prefixing an account number.

Hope this helps (maybe post the pic in "Military Swords" (Arsenal marks).

[Stephen]

ok my bad thought it was shichi shichi, guess i should take longer looks before i insert foot in mouth. right side up helps, thanks GT and David for the rotate and longer look