Unusual Shingunto Signature

[David McDonald]

Dear All

 

I am wondering about the signature on a Army Shingunto mounted sword.

The sword has a sukashi tsuba with 8 seppa and copper habaki.

 

So far I have

 

於昭和十年一月

Ni oite Showa ju nen Ichi gatsu

On the 1^st month of 10^th year of Showa period

 

第三帝国　Dai-san Teikoku (the Third Reich)

 

?中部百????坊 -- ? chu Bu Hyaku ? ? ? ? Bō

            (? Middle department 100 ?????????)

 

And help in the translation would be great.

 

Thanks david - [email protected]<script data-cfhash='f9e31' type="text/javascript"> /*

 

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[Brian]

The new cloudflare security I enabled seems to be working well, but it doesn't like email addresses posted publicly. Apparently that is a security risk for posters.

Suggest people post emails by writing (at) for now, until I work it out, or refer people to an email address in your signature.

Checking out the options, although I never suggest posting an email publicly.

 

  Quote

 

Email harvesters and bots are roaming the Internet looking for email addresses to add to their spam lists. For every email that is on a public facing page, that email address can expect to receive 800 spam messages the following year. Web masters have created clever ways to protect against this by writing out email addresses (i.e. help [at] cloudflare [dot] com) or by using embedded images of the email address. Although these methods work, you lose the ease of being able to click on the email address and automatically send an email.

[Drago]

第三帝国　could be Third Reich but also "third imperial"

海中部 underwater or sea division

百有餘回?坊 100, more than, return, ?? -> 回忌 (anniversary?) but neither the Third Reich's/Germany's nor the Empire of Japan's military had existed for 100 years in 1935...

 

Sorry, can't figure out more. I hope Morita-dono can help.

 

Please post full pictures of the blade and koshirae.

[David McDonald]

Dear Tobias

 

Thanks, I will work on what you have and see if I get any more tonight.

I hope someone else can get more. 

 

Just a very strange bit of information.

 

later

david

[David McDonald]

  On 10/3/2015 at 10:12 PM, David McDonald said:

Dear Tobias

 

Thanks, I will work on what you have and see if I get any more tonight.

I hope someone else can get more. 

 

Just a very strange bit of information.

 

later

david

[k morita]

Hi,
It can be read as The third division(第三師団) to me, not Third Reich.

[David McDonald]

Dear Morita

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

Would the kanji 海中部 be Kaichūbu or marine division/department?

 

So maybe altogether the 3^rdmarine division???

 

the last missing kanji looks like it is made with the 式 kanji

but I am not sure.

 

later

david

[Drago]

"3rd imperial marine division"...

 

Well, 式 (celebration, ceremony) would fit with the whole 100th return thing.

 

But the last kanji is still odd. I think you found the right one but perhaps it doesn't make sense because the rest has been cut off. As you can see, the nakago has been shortened rather crudely it seems.

 

And having this kind of inscription without a smith's name?

[k morita]

Hi,

[Drago]

第三師団,留守,百,有餘,回??

third division, absence, 100, more than, return/times, ??

 

Celebrating the more than 100th time 3rd Division didn't show up for duty?  or Commemorating the loss of more than 100 members?

 

Does any of this make sense??? I'm pretty sure it does, but not to me...

[Markus]

  On 10/4/2015 at 12:35 PM, Drago said:

Celebrating the more than 100th time 3rd Division didn't show up for duty?

 

 

"Rusu" (留守) was the minumum emergance part of a division that remained stationed in Japan whilst the actual unit was deployed to overseas/outside territories.