1945 Pattern Officers Sword

[Bruce Pennington]

Couple of updates on this:

1.  Trying to find anyone, either here or on Warrelics, that has documentation or insight to the 連工, or Renkoh stamp (got the English pronunciation from Nick).  I'm starting to agree with Thomas (Kiipu) on the idea this was a contraction, like Mantetsu is for SMR, for the 大連鉄道工場　Dairen Tetsudō Kōjō　Dairen Railway Workshop, who was the SMR shop making Mantetsu swords.  My reasoning is the location of the stamp on the end of the nakago.  It is not a normal location for an inspector stamp on Japanese blades.  Inspector stamps are found near the tsuba/seppa and on the mune.  The only inspector stamp found at the jiri of any blade is the M or W.  What we DO see is personal Kao and Hotstamps of  smiths, and we see stamped numbers which are either put there by smiths or by the fittings shops.  Either case COULD mean this Renkoh is the name of the shop, not an inspection stamp.

2.  I also think it's significant that the stamp is only found on the MRS fitted blades.  I wish it were true of ALL MRS blades, but it's not.  After perusing my files, I've found 6 1944 Mantetsu  and 2 1945 mumei Mantetsu in the MRS fittings:

1944

セ 1099

セ 1143

セ 1310 (with leather saya cover!)

セ 2340

セ 2575

?  199

1945

い 1170

Richard Fuller's mumei Mantetsu (unstated serial number)

 

Only 3 of those - 2340, 2575, and 199 - have the Renkoh stamp, although I don't have a full-length nakago pic of the 199 or 1066 blades (so they COULD be Renkoh stamped).