Did Any Member Buy This

Kai-Gunto · February 12, 2016

Heres my large and small kaigunto.

The small one has 2 stamps on the seppa. One for Toyokawa (anchor in sakura) and the other is company logo (Gunto Sei Saku Jo)

Located in Tokyo. The company was owned by Mr. Matsuyama. This firm made koshirae for both army and navy, as well as koshirae for police, diplomatic, and ceremonial uses.

Shamsy · February 13, 2016

Heres the saya out of the cover.

Ah... it's not quite what I'd thought. The saya cover is the same but the saya different. Still interesting, so thank you.

Jareth · February 19, 2016

I've owned & seen many short army service dress swords. These certainly aren't for airmen or tankers! I don't buy the myth. Let's face it some Japanese were very short! Other cases are short family blades used for gunto.

lonely panet · February 24, 2016

lets just forget the last post, because were not talking about short dress swords.

THIS IS THE CLASSIC "non" pilots/crew gunto.

rebound handle, crappy tsuba, no correct shin gunto menuki and the saya is pre ww1. (kurikata)

IMHO "put togeather crap"

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Japanese-WWll-Army-pilot-sword-in-combat-mounting-Hisamitsu-old-family-blade-/231852282268?hash=item35fb79119c:g:RJwAAOSwx-9WySIG

Dave R · February 24, 2016

I suspect many of the "family blades" originated as below..

lonely panet · February 24, 2016

Dave, forget the dam bloody blade, the topic I started has no bearing on the blade, its all about the pilots gunto koshire. FORGET THE BLOODY FAMILY BLADE, its a misconstrued term anyway.

its all about the fittings, I was pointing out to those who may not be familiar with "put to geather jobs".

just look at the length of the tsuka, the bad modern binding, the basic fittings, not being shin gunto. incorrect menuki.

just like a 1883 admirals flag sword koshire, its most likely more scarce then the blade housed inside

Dave R · February 24, 2016

Oh well, I thought we were looking at possible origins of "so called pilot swords" in general! However here are some pictures of small Gunto in wear. Fred Lohman reckons that this is the origin of most of them.

Dave R · February 24, 2016

For my part, I believe that there are/were "Crew Gunto" and that Mr. Ohmura shows them on his site here.... http://ohmura-study.net/977.html

And most would look something like this.......

Brian · February 24, 2016

Thank you for that short article upload anyways Dave. It clarifies a lot about the number of older wakizashi I have seen only having added ashi and combat cover. Makes sense.

Shamsy · February 26, 2016

Yes, a very interesting topic and thank you all for contributing. I think the is a lot more debate needed around these swords but there is really little known.