Kanji Help On Dirk

[Bruce Pennington]

I'm helping to ID a dirk someone has. Looks like a pretty high official of the Imperial Household, but I can't read Japanese (yet!). Can someone tell me what the kanji means?

[Johncstroud]

I will se if I can find it in my travels .looks like a family mon to me but Im still new at this.

[Johncstroud]

Thats one helluva pig sticker if I ever did see one.Down right purdy.

[uwe]

I think it's definitely not a mon. Rather a stamp representing one or more kanji. Maybe a manufacturers brand?!

[lonely panet]

Hi bruce,

 

due to old texts books and a real lack of information, maybe contact Jim Dawson, I heard a rumour that hes doing another book just on Dirks.

 

that aside, there is two dirks that look very simular, One is a 1909  railways senior officers dirk and the other is a imperil household dirk.

the only difference is the head of the mekugi screw.

 

personally I don't think its a household dirk, purely due to the lack of guilt and the rather poor carving. iv seen afew household swords and they are very well made and very thick guilt applied. your dirk doesn't reflect the ostentatious appearance of the imperial household.

 

 

Id love to be proven wrong, for your friend. As he will have a very rare dirk, next to the redcross dirk thet seldom ever seen

 

regards H

[Shugyosha]

  On 7/29/2016 at 7:25 PM, uwe said:

I think it's definitely not a mon. Rather a stamp representing one or more kanji. Maybe a manufacturers brand?!

 

I think Uwe is right with this. The problem is that (I believe) the kanji are in seal script so not easy to tie back to the normal kaisho script. I think bottom left may be 止 but I can't do much more than this. To be honest, I'm not even sure which way up it should go. 

[Bruce Pennington]

Using Guy's symbols, I found a translation software that gives some definitions. My attempts at translating kanji have been pretty poor, so I post this in the hopes it will trigger someone who really knows! I also don't know the proper order the symbols should be read through the square, but then, if they might not be meant to be a sentence, but more a collection of meaningful ideas:

ム - Moon

山 - Top; summit; mountain

正 - True; righteous; just; honets; rightfully

又 - Again; moreover; too; once

 

I suspect it is a collection of meaningful ideas like we say "God, Family, Country" or "Duty, Honor, Country", but I don't know and am still searching.

[SteveM]

I think it is quite similar to the manufacturer's mark on the right of this page, the one at the bottom noted as "Tan".

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

 

I can find no other reference to this mark, however. 

[Shugyosha]

Fuller and Gregory says that the "Tan" or "Kitau" (forged) stamp was used on sword blades probably to indicate a hand-forged blade. 

 

Based on Bruce's reading and going from right to left and top to bottom I got Shiyu Yamamasa or an alternative for Yamamasa would be Sansei (Sanzei) but got no hits on Google using these names in the context of military dirks. 

 

Best,

John