Intro & My Intriguing 1St Buy

[Wouter]

Hi all,

 

My name is Wouter and i currently live and work form the Czech Republic.

I have studied Japanology and always dreamed of possessing a "katana".

Last week I risked my first buy and discovered your forum.

Before bothering you with my questions, I would like to thank every contributor to this forum. The information I have found so far has been extremely useful and only augmented my fascination.

Please do forgive my lack of knowledge and making this new topic so long.

 

These are my questions:

 

1. I discovered that the exact same gunto I currently possess has been described here. Please do refer to that site for the pictures of blade, tang and fittings.

Yes, the year is incorrect, since Showa 17 is 1942, not 43 as written on that site.

They are however correct when saying that the previous owner has "destroyed" the polish and making it impossible to "read" the blade (IE determine if it is gendaito). The Hamon is dead and only visible in 2 spots.

I have discovered that there are 3 stamps on the Mune. A Mei, or Nagoya arsenal inspection stamp and a Ho inspection stamp. these are followed by a stamped number 1. This number matches with the tsuba and spacers.

There is however no star stamp on the tang, but there are nowhere any arsenal stamps (apart from the inspection stamps). 

Since the date on this gunto is Sho 17, being the year when the star stamp system got implemented, does this mean that it is not a gendaito?

Now I have found this "Gendaito", which is almost exactly the same, including the arsenal inspection stamps on the mune. They describe it as hand forged. 

 

This brings me to question 2:

The gunto is signed "Seki-Ju Kanetomo".

The seller from whom i bought the gunto assigned the signature to Ryūminsai Kanetomo (born as Kiribuchi Mataishi). I found out both are listed as members of the Rikugun Jumei Tosho, but Ryuminsai (KAN2550) is from Gunma, while Seki refers to the city in Mino province, Gifu prefecture. There is about 300 km between both prefectures?

Also the Mei (signature) of Ryūminsai Kanetomo is: 上野住人龍眠齋兼友作 “Kozuke Junin Ryūminsai Kanetomo Saku”. Would he also sign as “Seki-ju Kanetomo Saku”?

To add to the confusion, the "gendaito" offered via the second link I provided translates the Mei as KANETOMO Kiribuchi (rated one million yen smith in slough's book, pg.69, medium to high grade gendaito, 1st seat 1941 sword exhibition)

Are these 3 different persons, or one and the same? 

 

Sorry for having made this first entry so long.

I do hope you will be able to shed some light on these questions. they have kept me awake for over a week now...

 

Thank you very much in advance,

 

Wouter

 

PS If you are interested in the purchasing history of this gunto.

I have reached out to my seller and he confirms it is the same gunto as on quanoline.com.  He has bought it from a Czech-American selIer 4 years ago, and he had it from militaryitems.com.

[george trotter]

Hi Wouter,

it is good to see a new collector approach the study of swords in such a sensible way. 

I only know of one smith named Kanetomo who worked in Seki in WWII.

His name is Miwa Kanetomo. His personal name was Shizuo. He was registered as a swordsmith in Seki in Sho 14, October 20.

His name is listed in literary sources as being an RJT smith....He is given in NIHONTO MEIKAN p.160 as RJT of Seki and was 28 years old in Sho 18.

If you google Miwa Kanetomo, something will probably come up.

Hope this helps. 

[Wouter]

Hi George,

 

thank you for the compliment, swift reply and information.

I did find Miwa Kanetomo, an average smith (chu saku), but he did make gendaito as well as showato.

Apparently his mei was Noshū Seki Jū Miwa Kanetomo Saku (濃州関住三輪兼友作)

Not the "Seki Ju Kanetomo Saku" I'm looking for, but of course many of the RJT used multiple signatures.

 

Then again, he belonged to the sword factory (Limited company, Seki Kyoshin Sha, 有限会社　関共進社), 

 

Other members were Kato Kaneharu, ojima Kanemichi, Kojima Kanenori, Takeyama Yoshinao, Fujii Kanefuji, Kurimoto Kanemasa, Tsukahara Kanetsugu, Matsumoto Yoshinori and they signed with "Seki Ju (name) Saku", so is it Miwa Kanetomo after all?

 

And the plot thickens...

 

Wouter

[george trotter]

Hi Wouter,

Yes, your smith is Miwa Kanetomo. He may have used Miwa in some signatures but mostly just plain "Seki Ju Kanetomo saku". Yours has no large Sho or Seki stamp, so it is a good chance of being gendaito.

I looked up the the book Tosho Zenshu by Shimizu p.612 and he also has Miwa Kanetomo. He has the same info as Nihonto Meikan. He says Kanetomo was born in Taisho 4 and lived in Seki. By the way, the Na (Nagoya) and Ho (first or second inspection) stamps are seen on RJT blades on occasion. I have seen them on blades by the very good RJT smith Seki Kanehide (Nakata) and others.

Happy researching...

[Wouter]

***Update***

I have not found lots of information so far on this tachi, hence still not calling it a gendaito.

 

On the mune, between the Na and the Ho stamp, there appears to be a miniscule 5 pointed star. Now, I could be wishing upon a star, but the exact same 'stamp' was also visible on the gendaito offered via the 2nd link in my first entry of this post.

 

Unfortunately, that link is no longer pointing to the gendaito attributed to Ryuminsai. I couldn't find it either under 'sold items' on their site.

Makes me wonder if anyone else has seen this on other gendaito?

 

Although I have been -very carefully- uchiko'ing the blade, some activity and the rest of the hamon is starting to appear, but yet too many scratches to really tell what I have.

I am considering a window polish, but living in the Czech Republic, I do not know if any good polishers live nearby.

 

For completeness:I did reach out to the seller (2nd link) with the information I had gathered here.

He did thank me for the information, but sold the gendaito as work from Ryuminsai anyway.

Well, apparantly it is -was- not that unusual that swords are attributed to better known masters...

 

Looking forward to your reactions,

 

Wouter

[Kai-Gunto]

NOT a tachi , but a shingunto.

[Johnny Barracuda]

Well, clicking on the link leads to a Nazi SS dagger, which is rather off topic from the NMB. There may be an addressing error.

[Lee Bray]

Wouter, I recently tried to purchase a sword from the Czech Republic which didn't happen because the seller could not ship the item due to the Czech customs laws.

This is going to make overseas restoration or selling the sword difficult for you and probably something you need to look into.

Hopefully, you'll have better luck than I...and if you do find a way, please let me know.

[SwordGuyJoe]

NOT a tachi , but a shingunto.

Shingunto are mounted as tachi (edge of the blade/Yakiba worn pointing down), so technically it would be a tachi. The blade itself (which I can't see), if signed in the fashion that wearing the sword slung with the edge facing down and the mei would face away from the body, it would be signed tachi-mei.

[Wouter]

NOT a tachi , but a shingunto.

Thank you for pointing that out. Pls also see the reply from SwordGuyjoe.

 

Wouter

[Wouter]

Well, clicking on the link leads to a Nazi SS dagger, which is rather off topic from the NMB. There may be an addressing error.

Sorry for the confusion, as I pointed out, after the gendaito (link 2) had been sold, it dissapeared from their site and is now linked to that dagger.

Unfortunately I'm not able to edit that post now to remove the link.

 

Wouter

[Wouter]

Wouter, I recently tried to purchase a sword from the Czech Republic which didn't happen because the seller could not ship the item due to the Czech customs laws.

This is going to make overseas restoration or selling the sword difficult for you and probably something you need to look into.

Hopefully, you'll have better luck than I...and if you do find a way, please let me know.

Hi Lee,  the sword was sent to me from slovakia without any issues.

As advised on the forum by so many I bought 'the' books and started studying. I had ordered the books via Amazon US and it was quite a struggle dealing with the customs to get them here. At the end I had to pay taxes and administrative costs. The total price was higher than what I actually paid for the books.

So I can only imagine how difficult it must be to post a 'weapon'. If I learn more, I will difinitely post an update.

In theory we are part of the European Union, but I guess we still have a long way to travel...

 

Wouter

 

PS I am not planning on selling the sword. To me its historical value -apart from being nihonto or not- is priceless. Every sword has it's story and being my first buy is only a very small part of it.

[Wouter]

Shingunto are mounted as tachi (edge of the blade/Yakiba worn pointing down), so technically it would be a tachi. The blade itself (which I can't see), if signed in the fashion that wearing the sword slung with the edge facing down and the mei would face away from the body, it would be signed tachi-mei.

thank you, SwordGuyJoe,

 

To the point and very valid.

Indeed mounted to be worn edge down and signed tachi-mei. In the first post, first link there are some pictures, but they are not mine. Currenlty I am on a business trip, so can't upload any.

I will try later.

 

Wouter

[SwordGuyJoe]

If that's the case, then the sword is indeed a tachi

[Wouter]

Thank you for all the useful replies.

As promised, some pictures.

Still experimenting with size, I do hope this resolution is OK.

 

The picture of the mune stamps I will also post in the "arsenal stamps" thread.

 

Best regards,

 

Wouter

[Wouter]

And some more

 

Wouter

[SwordGuyJoe]

You may have a decent sword under those scratches. Your blade was forged by Miwa Kanetomo (The inscription/mei reads Seki Ju Kanetomo Saku). He was a decent smith and listed here. Second seat and chu Saku isn't too bad: http://www.jp-sword.com/files/seki/gendaito.html.

[Wouter]

Update:

Almost by accident I discovered there is actually a Japanese trained toshigi living and working in the Czech Republic.

I met him recently at his place and we spend a day talking swords and he showed me his work.

He also closely inspected my blades, including this Type 98, and he is 95% sure it is traditionally made and I'm on the -very long- waiting list for a polish.

 

BR

Wouter

 

He gave me permission to publish his site on this forum: nipponto.cz
In the past he was actively participating on forums, but has "retired" from that part of the nihonto-world to be able to fully concentrate on his clients.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Wouter

[Kai-Gunto]

The link is dead?

[SwordGuyJoe]

http://nipponto.cz

 

Try this one

[Stephen]

Joes works or leave off http://

 

http://nipponto.cz/ucitele.php

his teachers

[Bruce Pennington]

Very nice gunto, Wouter, congrats!

[Brian]

If he can provide a short background, who he trained under etc..I would be happy to add him to the restoration links.

[vajo]

This guy is only 380 km from my home. I would be happy to know him. 

[Stephen]

page will translate. just right click trans to english

[Wouter]

If he can provide a short background, who he trained under etc..I would be happy to add him to the restoration links.

 

Sorry the link wasn't working.

He only speaks Czech, but his wive speaks English, as well as French.

They have quite a lot of international clients, so they do manage.

His teachers can be found on his website (via the link provided by Stephen), which is unfortunately only in Czech, but not that hard to navigate.

Brian, maybe you should ask Pavel directly if he would like to be added to the restoration links? His email address is nipponto@nipponto.cz .

You may of course mention my name.

BR

Wouter