Army D-Guard Tag Verifying Translation

[Ron STL]

Years ago this handsome army D-guard, o-suriage mumei blade, attributed to Etchu no Kami Masatoshi, was purchased. I've always kept the surrender tag that came with it as part of the sword's history. The tag was translated by somebody way back then, but today, while updating the swords records, I would like to verify or more accurately understand the tag. The earlier translation was: SO KABE (or GABE MOTOICHI, HECHI KEN (NAGOYA) IMASEKI (town?) Nagoya Aichi-ken, Owari. I see some of those characters here, but not enough to convince me of the earlier wording. Anyone care to take a stab at this for me???

 

I recall being so surprised when the shinsa team attributed it to Masatoshi. The o-suriage,, three mekugi-ana sword looked late Nambokucho/early Muromachi to me. The was the 1997 NTHK shinsa in Long Island when senior Yoshikawa was head of the team, so I never doubted the teams call. In Keicho they were doing this copying older swords.

Ron STL

[SteveM]

Ehime-ken, Imabari-shi, Ōaza Tsujidō

 

Sokabe Motoichi

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imabari,_Ehime

[nagamaki - Franco]

Hello Ron,

 

Any chance of seeing images of the blade?

 

Thank you.

[Ron STL]

Thanks Steve, for the cleared up translation and link to the area. It makes me wonder who Major Sokabe Motoichi was. Franco, I'll see about getting a few relatively clear photos of the blade. I've had it for over 20 years but never tried to photograph the blade before. Good time to "sit with" the blade awhile and study it again. Ron STL