Type 95 Gunto Worksheet

[BANGBANGSAN]

70006東&名101557 are authetic,others are all Chinese fakes.

I read about this website called Spainswords via another thread and decided to have a look myself.  Some Type 95's showed up and below are the links.  Forgive my satire at times. Maybe one or two real ones along with some educational pieces to think twice about.

 

Is it me, but does the hilt look like it was painted gold?  I am not seeing an underlying coat of brown paint.  Possibly completely stripped and repainted?  Also, is that another alloy fuchi?

一 within a cherry blossom 70006東

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa28.html

 

Again, a repaint.  Do I see a pattern here?

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa73.html

 

The story just gets better and better.

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa75.html

 

You know the drill by now.

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa83.html

 

名101557.  Second opinion anyone?

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa97.html

 

As always, the best one for last.  Just check out that arsenal logo!

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa143.html

 

名101557

[vajo]

Hi Thomas on this spanish website i see only terrible pieces. ????

 

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa208.html

[Shamsy]

70006東&名101557 are authetic,others are all Chinese fakes.

 

 

 

名101557

Yep.

 

I think you're mistaking patina with paint on the first sword, Thomas. Some aluminium hilts get a golden tinge for some reason. It's been discussed here before. Could also be the lighting (which is awful), or the ito paint staining the metal.

 

Not to say it's definitely not been painted, but I don't think that's the case. The saya has been though, obviously.

[Kiipu]

Yep.

 

I think you're mistaking patina with paint on the first sword, Thomas. Some aluminium hilts get a golden tinge for some reason. It's been discussed here before. Could also be the lighting (which is awful), or the ito paint staining the metal.

 

Not to say it's definitely not been painted, but I don't think that's the case. The saya has been though, obviously.

 

I agree the lighting is causing a golden hue in all the photographs.  Even the tsuba has a golden color to it.  Strange though the fuchi came out normal but not the hilt.

 

However, here is another possible explanation about the brass tone on some Type 95s.

Type 95 Brass-colored Tsuka - A Discovery!

http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/Japanese-militaria/type-95-brass-colored-tsuka-discovery-698121/

 

Live and learn!

Edited September 21, 2019 by Thomas

[Stegel]

Hi Thomas on this spanish website i see only terrible pieces.

 

http://www.spainswords.es/japonesa208.html

I agree wholeheartedly with Chris on this one....  which is making me wonder about the point of this thread.

 

Firstly, Thomas,

if you have a Real Question to ask, because YOU don't know.........then ask it openly and honestly.

If You do know and wish to make an educational point  for fellow collectors, then make it clear and just say it.

        Give us your opinion on the pieces at this Spanish site instead.???  maybe you have already....

 

Maybe one or two real ones along with some educational pieces to think twice about.

 

 

It is this kind of reply to your own question  that i find a tad abrasive.

 

I agree the lighting is causing a golden hue in all the photographs.  Even the tsuba has a golden color to it.  Strange though the fuchi came out normal but not the hilt.

 

However, here is another possible explanation about the brass tone on some Type 95s.

Type 95 Brass-colored Tsuka - A Discovery!

http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/Japanese-militaria/type-95-brass-colored-tsuka-discovery-698121/

 

Live and learn!

 

My!! aren't you a clever boy!   answered your own question

 

Please don't preach to the converted, most of us are not novices here.

 

Most of the links you've added, have had input from a few of the members joining in on this thread.

So nothing new really.

 

 

Perhaps you could use pieces from your collection to make points - from which we could all possibly learn something

Do you have a collection??? 

 

I think you may just find that you'll  be received a lot better if you drop the attitude

[Shamsy]

I remember that thread from Nick well. He's taught us a great deal over the years.

[Shamsy]

Oh, I echo Stegels thoughts too. I've not learned anything from the thread that Nick hasn't uncovered and shared with us already. Instead of piecemeal information and rehashing old info, could we focus on new discussion and learning please?

 

I found the discussion about Kobe and the Ichi stamp potentially being the same company interesting. Another theory was that Ichi was signifying 'Tokyo First'. A better look at serial numbers and sword patterns is needed I think. A path that might actually be helpful to pursue.

 

Listing the swords on the Spanish site was not a worthwhile exercise in my opinion. There is already a thread on fake 95. Much better to save some of the pictures of fake swords and post them there for others to see. Maybe point out some obvious errors in them. That way anyone that truly would learn from the examples can get a more complete picture of the vast variety of fake swords instead of a few fakes amongst a couple of real swords.

[PNSSHOGUN]

This thread should have the useful information and work extracted and put into some kind of cohesive and moderated form. I'm all for speculation and discussion but it can quickly get totally out of hand and results in promising threads with very interesting discoveries & reference material getting horribly bogged down with inconsequential posts. You will learn more than any reference book in this section, as long as you have the patience sometimes!

[Bruce Pennington]

I totally missed the "Ikko" part of Guy's translation of that newspaper ad. That is too strong of a coincidence! I have seen other stamps where it is the first kanji of a name ("伊” the first character of the name of sword smith 伊奈波兼吉(Inaba Kaneyoshi) comes to mind) or Fuku for Fukuoka. And considering the fact that there are no other known sword makers that were involved in the Type 95 process, the evidence is definitely leaning to "K" for Kobe and "一" for Ikko. Why the switch would be great to find out.

 

On the Gifu to Seki discussion - I have read that the Seki group abandonded the "Seki" stamp when the Nagoya Arsenal started using it, so I had assumed the order to have flowed in the other direction: Seki ---> Gifu. It would take some investigating to see some dates on blades bearing both stamps to pin it down.

[Smee78]

To me, they are one and the same.  The K was dropped and replaced by 一.  Just like Seki which went from the 岐 logo to the 刀 logo.

Serial Numbers in Sequential Order

38027東  K within a cherry blossom.

38254東  K within a cherry blossom.

39023東  K within a cherry blossom.

68452東  一 within a cherry blossom.

68765東  一 within a cherry blossom.

68920東  一 within a cherry blossom.

 

My sword adds to this list with 69022 東  一 within a cherry blossom

[Bruce Pennington]

Some additions here...

The "一 within a cherry blossom"  also appears in the 47k-49k range for both Std issue (Brass Tsuba) and Contingency issue (Steel Tsuba)

 

Ok guys, here’s an Ichi stamped 95 in the 100,000 range!  106773 to be exact.

 

fleabay: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/WW2-Japanese-NCO-OFFICERS-SWORD-MATCHING-NUMBERS-ON-BLADE-SCABBARD-MINTY-C13/402003773216?hash=item5d994ac720:g:qpIAAOSwOzld-5Qv

[Bruce Pennington]

I was trying to remember where a discussion took place about the transition for the Jinsen Arsenal to start producing swords. I can't find it. The reason is that there is a Type 95 posted on Wehrmacht-Awards - http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1032195, showing a Kokura stamped, Tokyo instpected Iijima manufactured blade that has an additional "仁" (Jin) stamp. The Kokura stamp puts the manufacture of this blade no later than 1940. So this would appear to be a gunto provided by the Tokyo Arsenal to the Jinsen arsenal for maybe an example for the team starting up production?

 

[Shamsy]

I think samples from maybe all manufacturers were sent, possibly throughout the war. May have even just been sent ongoing for distribution to troops without any thought to Jinsen producing swords until the very end, when mainland supply failed. There's a examples of Jin the stamp on Kokura and Tokyo 1st stamped swords from a single manufacturer. I can't see why that'd be the case unless the swords were sent there or refurbished/repaired there at different times.

[Bruce Pennington]

I remember now - it was Stegel's thread about the "transitional tsuba" -http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/30699-type-95-transitional-tsuba/ 

[Bruce Pennington]

Fascinating bit of history at Warrelics about terms from Nick Komiya, responding to Thomas' digging up army kanji for "saya":

 

https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Military-Civil-Swords-Dirks/dp/1574270621

 

"There is actually a small story of its own attached to the evolution of the Japanese language used by the army. In a nutshell, senior officers of the early IJA were ex-samurai, mainly from the southern island of Kyushu, and for the Samurai, learning classical Chinese was obligatory as Latin was for European intellectuals of the time. On the other hand, the ex-farmers that got inducted into the new army, though extremely literate by international standards of those times (In the Kyushu region, roughly 70% of the general population was literate). However, between those educated in classical Chinese and those with normal daily farm-hand literacy, there was naturally a world of disparity in Kanji literacy.

 

Thus by 1940, there were too many complicated weapon names that simple soldiers could no longer keep up with. So the army finally decided to simplify its naming practices.

 

They did this by restricting the weapons vocabulary to a maximum of 1,235 Kanji. Of this number, 959 were classified as class 1 kanji, obligatory for the most basic weapon ("A class weapons" 甲兵器 ) names. The Class 1 range was picked from Kanji you should know by the end of the 4th year in elementary school with a sprinkling of some simple 5th and 6th-grader kanji. There were further 276 Class 2 Kanjis taken from elementary school graduate level and applied to weapons used by higher qualified personnel ("B class weapons"乙兵器).

 

Regarding the naming of the scabbard for the Type 95 sword as 革+室 as seen in the 1938 document. It may very likely be an army invented kanji (Ate-ji). Back in 1887, the army called the leather sheaths for field engineer tools Kaku-Shitsu, written 革室, literally meaning “leather chamber”. This word was used for 20 years until they changed the naming of the case to a bag, Fukuro 袋 in 1907. Arisaka of rifle design fame had a role in coining unique army naming practices that defied conventional kanji readings and he happened to be he chief of army weapons development, a position with enough clout to screw up army lingo beyond recognition to educated laymen.

See here for details on that story.

 

These two kanji seem to have been joined together later at the hip to mean Saya for the NCO swords. Thus 革+室 was already in use from the Type 32 swords. Officer swords on the other hand, had been using the more traditional Kanji for Saya 鞘 at least since the 1912 model officer swords. This difference in the kanji used for scabbard got carried over into the Type 94, 95 and 98 swords.

 

Thus until weapon name kanji restrictions came into effect in Feb. 1940, officer and NCO swords did not share the same kanji for what would have been read Saya, whichever way you wrote it.

 

The 1940 army lingo simplification worked also as a social equalizer in this respect, as both Kanji got dropped from the permissible kanji list. Saya 鞘 for officer swords continued to be used, but it became mandatory to add Furigana, showing how to read it. In the case of Type 95 swords, they simply ceased to use the army-coined kanji for Saya and switched to Hiragana, as seen in the manual shown from 1944 in post 14."

[zook]

Always interesting to read Nick's posts!  

[Bruce Pennington]

I believe @Stegel in another thread, said the Ichi serial range ran out to the 160000 range.  Here's one at action with 143256 number.

I'll link the auction, but that's going to be out of date once the auction is over.  HERE

[Conway S]

I just wanted to repost this in a more applicable thread. I am wondering if anyone can contribute an opinion as to whether the handle has been repainted and if it looks like a period job or later. I noticed little spots of brown overpaint into the white Same areas and close to the menuki. I do not collect these and am I just trying to learn what features to scrutinize. Thanks. 

 

Conway 

On 7/19/2023 at 11:22 AM, Bruce Pennington said:

Photos added for future reference 

 

[Conway S]

[Bruce Pennington]

Conway, there seems to be plenty of wear & tear on the paint, so I'd guess it's original.

[vajo]

Inverse nanako, crude seppa, a long sarute. I have my doubts about this sword. I don't like the numbers on the blade too. 

 

[robinalexander]

Chris, I like your observations.....is it possible the long sarute could be added or variation and the seppa damaged?

 

That said, I definitely agree with you re the inverted nanako...your eyes are probably better than mine but I have never seen that on a genuine 95.  This point alone would be a deal breaker for me.

 

And the numbers don't sit well with me either but there are some weird variations.

 

If it's a fake, then they are getting good.

 

 

 

[Stegel]

i wonder what happened to the bohi??

100% original in my opinion

[vajo]

2 hours ago, Stegel said:

i wonder what happened to the bohi??

100% original in my opinion

That one Stegel?

 

I can't belive it is genuine. For me it looks fake. But i learned every day something new.

[Conway S]

4 hours ago, Stegel said:

i wonder what happened to the bohi??

100% original in my opinion

[Conway S]

@Stegel To me that area does not look entirely straight. I thought @vajo made a good point about the inverse dimpling on the handle. Have you seen this before on other Type 95s? I know you are one of the resident experts on these. Not doubting your opinion just trying to learn from those who know. Thanks.

 

Conway

[Conway S]

Found this late Suya example with serial 155,437. It has a brass tsuba instead of iron. As you can see from the pictures the  Suya and Tokyo First Arsenal stamps on the fuchi are very faint. It does give me some pause because the seller is also selling two other fake NCO swords at the moment...  If it is fake they picked a good serial number to use. Interested to hear others' thoughts. Thanks.

 

Conway 

[Conway S]

[Bruce Pennington]

Have to call on @Shamsy for this one!  The whole thing looks too crude to be something made by Suya Shoten.  They are known for higher quality stuff than this.  I also don't like the Tokyo star.  Never seen one like that.  

[John C]

Conway:

Just my two cents... the tsuba and tsuka look legit to me (note the even pattern of "same'" and the detail on the menuki). Also, the style of numbering (font) looks correct.

But Bruce is correct that it all seems a bit "weak" for that shop.

 

John C.