Yamato - Den Monju - Please Help With Translation

[Moley]

Greetings fellow members,

First of all may I state how grateful I am for being allowed to be a member of this forum and how useful it has been in furthering my knowledge about Nihonto.

Please help if you can with the translation of these papers. I received these with my latest purchase of a Tanto which I believe is Yamato- den attributed to the Monju school. As I am trying to build up a profile for my own records, I would really like a page by page translation including envelope.

Thanking you all in advance and in awe of your superior skills.

 

Regards

 

Gwyn

(North Wales)

 

Image 1 = Envelope (with pencilled in Kanji)

Image 2 = Back of envelope

Image 3 = Right side of paper

Image 4 = Left side of paper

Image 5 = Back of paper 

[Moley]

Ooops sorry - Image 2 is upside down, just realised.

(My wife scanned it   :-) )

 

Oh no it's not (Wifey)

[Mark]

check out Danny's site it is very helpful with a lot of what you want

 

http://www.nihontocraft.com/japanese_sword_papers.html#japanese_sword_4   (go toward the bottom)

 

after getting some of the basics let us know what else you need (like attribution)

 

you will learn a lot working through it

[SteveM]

Also,

 

Your wife is right - the alignment of #2 is correct. 

And... you say this is a tanto, but the paper indicates it is a wakizashi. .  

[Moley]

Also,

 

Your wife is right - the alignment of #2 is correct. 

And... you say this is a tanto, but the paper indicates it is a wakizashi. .  

Thanks Steve, I can see that SWMBO is correct.

Also it is rather large, so could indeed be a Wakizashi.  From Mark's post, I have deduced that the paper is a Hozon, and that Hozon means worthy of preservation. Otherwise I have no clue as to what any of the Kanji says. What I would like is a page by page, word for word  translation for my records. Regards  Gwyn.

[Jean]

No at your "it could be a wakizashi", It is a wakizashi. Third picture (middle one) second column, the small kanji, indicates the length of the sword, it is a wakizashi, the length is over 1 shaku. Third column begins by wakizashi.This is very basic Gwyn.

 

Begin by this:

 

http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/origami.htm

 

http://www.jssus.org/nkp/index.html

 

You can easily decipher a few columns

[SteveM]

Hello Moley/Gwen,

 

I think normally the site here likes to think of itself as a learning site, and not necessarily a free translation service. So the ladies and gents here prefer you to pick up what you can from the other resources available. Most of the official certificate is boilerplate, and the only things unique to your wakizashi would be the items #2 and #3 as shown in the nihontocraft site linked to earlier (as Jean said above).

 

What we do do quite often is try to decipher, decode, and otherwise translate signatures on blades. These can be very tricky, even for experts. Other short bits of Japanese would also be fair to pitch to the crowd here.

 

This is my 2 cents. I used to frequent the board regularly many, many years ago, and am just coming back after getting my interest re-kindled, so I may not be the best person to pontificate on the what is acceptable.

 

Steve

[Shugyosha]

Hi Gwen,

 

I think I used to own this blade, so I'll try to help out within the limits of my knowledge. Unfortunately, there isn't much information beyond the standard form which is pretty much translated on Danny Massey's site. In the third photograph, reading right to left:

 

Kantei sho

Nagasa - I shaku 6 bu approximately 

Item - wakizashi mu mei attributed to monju

The next two columns are translated on Nihontocraft except that it is designated "Hozon" as opposed to "Tokubetsu Hozon".

Next is the date on which the appraisal was carried out: March 29th in the 18th year of Heisei (2007?).

The final column is another standard wording translated on Nihontocraft.

On the back of the paper is written the name of the person submitting the sword to the NBTHK and below it the date on which the paper was written up.

 

If I'm right about having owned it previously - it's a lovely little blade with excellent proportions and very attractive hada. Clearly you are a man of excellent taste.

 

Kind regards,

John

[SteveM]

Or woman

[Shugyosha]

Er...yes. Sorry for the assumption and for misspelling Gwyn's name.

[Moley]

No at your "it could be a wakizashi", It is a wakizashi. Third picture (middle one) second column, the small kanji, indicates the length of the sword, it is a wakizashi, the length is over 1 shaku. Third column begins by wakizashi.This is very basic Gwyn.

 

Begin by this:

 

http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/origami.htm

 

http://www.jssus.org/nkp/index.html

 

You can easily decipher a few columns

Thanks Jean, It is indeed a Wakizashi then, also I'll get stuck in with the de-cyphering. 

 

Hello Moley/Gwen,

 

I think normally the site here likes to think of itself as a learning site, and not necessarily a free translation service. So the ladies and gents here prefer you to pick up what you can from the other resources available. Most of the official certificate is boilerplate, and the only things unique to your wakizashi would be the items #2 and #3 as shown in the nihontocraft site linked to earlier (as Jean said above).

 

What we do do quite often is try to decipher, decode, and otherwise translate signatures on blades. These can be very tricky, even for experts. Other short bits of Japanese would also be fair to pitch to the crowd here.

 

This is my 2 cents. I used to frequent the board regularly many, many years ago, and am just coming back after getting my interest re-kindled, so I may not be the best person to pontificate on the what is acceptable.

 

Steve

I think the easiest thing is to print out a copy of the Hozon paper and write my translation efforts on top ?

 

Hi Gwen,

 

I think I used to own this blade, so I'll try to help out within the limits of my knowledge. Unfortunately, there isn't much information beyond the standard form which is pretty much translated on Danny Massey's site. In the third photograph, reading right to left:

 

Kantei sho

Nagasa - I shaku 6 bu approximately 

Item - wakizashi mu mei attributed to monju

The next two columns are translated on Nihontocraft except that it is designated "Hozon" as opposed to "Tokubetsu Hozon".

Next is the date on which the appraisal was carried out: March 29th in the 18th year of Heisei (2007?).

The final column is another standard wording translated on Nihontocraft.

On the back of the paper is written the name of the person submitting the sword to the NBTHK and below it the date on which the paper was written up.

 

If I'm right about having owned it previously - it's a lovely little blade with excellent proportions and very attractive hada. Clearly you are a man of excellent taste.

 

Kind regards,

John

Thanks John,  It is indeed a "lovely little blade"   BTW it's Gwyn NOT Gwen  .... Gwen is the female form of the name. Steve typed the wrong form, as he realises below :-)

 

Or woman

Thanks Steve, :-) :-) :-)  

[Moley]

Thanks Guy's, I'm gonna percevere with my translation efforts.

Here are a couple of photo's in appreciation of your help.

[Shugyosha]

That's the one. 

 

I think there's a small kirikomi on the mune, so it has seen some action.

 

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

 

Best regards,

[Moley]

With grateful thanks to all you fine gentlemen for your assistance.

Translation is all done except the envelope.

That was a very pleasurable and very interesting experience and also quite easy in the end, thanks to your links.

I now have  printed copy of the Kantei with english translation written by the side in pencil.

 

 

John, - you are right, there is indeed a small Kirikomi on the mune. So.. you must have been it's previous keeper.

Where do you live?

 

Gwyn

[Shugyosha]

Hi Gwyn,

 

I'm in Hertfordshire, UK.

 

Best,

John

[Moley]

This is FUN !

I just translated the Kunesuke paper really, really quickly.

The Kunesuke also came with a paper.

This is my second "New Toy". (another Wakizashi)

Apparently (the paper) is a Kicho Ninteisho used up to May 1982 and commonly called a "White paper"

 

First photo - Kunisuke Mei

Second photo - Kunisuke TOP      Yamato - Den Monju BOTTOM

[Brian]

Well done Gwyn!

As Steve said, we never refuse to translate, we just like to see people try a bit themselves and are then happy to fill in the gaps. But as you have seen, it is amazing when you find you can do a lot of it yourself. You've done great.

Also cool to see how the forum so easily matches owner with former owner

[Moley]

To use a Karate term... "Ossssss"