Why are Mon so rare on Kai Gunto?

[Bruce Pennington]

7 hours ago, BANGBANGSAN said:

Sorry Bruce, this is the only one type 30 I ever saw 

Did a little search on Gunboards and found several bayonets with stamps on the ricasso, and they are all from arsenals!  The Jinsen is in sakura like this Toyokawa.  SO, I guess it really is a stamp from the Toyokawa aresenal.  Seems they used different stamps (circle or sakura) depending upon the item it was going on.

[BANGBANGSAN]

Bruce

I mean I only saw one  Type 30 bayonet has Toyokawa mark, there are many Bayonet with Jinsen and Mukden arsenal mark out there.

[Smee78]

Those are some interesting looking mon. Thanks to everyone who shared theirs, never seems to be and end to what you learn on this board.

[Kiipu]

@PNSSHOGUN I thought you might enjoy this little tidbit about the prescribed location of mons 紋 on Type 97s.

 

Quote

A careful read through the 15 items also reveals that, if you wanted to incorporate your family Mon on the sword, the Menuki was where you were allowed to display it, not elsewhere.

Launch documentation for the 1937 introduction of the new Navy Gunto, Post #25

[Bruce Pennington]

John, this one just posted by @Bencld HERE.

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

Two additions to the throng:

 

 

 

[zuiho]

Another mon on a kai gunto kabuto.                                         William G.

[Beater]

My kaigunto, with silver mon on menuki. Good quality fittings with same-nuri saya. Blade by Ishido Mitsunobu (aka Teruhide) + Koa. 
 

Although I no longer own it, I previously had a kaigunto with silver mon on kabuto (crossed hawk feather design). That was a Shinto blade signed: “ Hoki no kami Fujiwara Nobutaka” and it had a surrender label which gave owners name as Surgeon Lieutenant Yasuo Ono. The label was included in Richard Fuller’s book on surrender tags / labels, page 95.

 

I mention that because in that book approx 70 pages show army surrender labels whilst only about a dozen pages show navy. So, this question of why more silver mons on Shingunto than kaigunto can equally be applied to surrender labels. I suspect it has little to do with status or wealth and everything to do with personal choice and numerical statistics of those swords which survived.

 

Heavy losses of their main capital ships, on which one assumes many senior officers perished along with their swords is a known fact. For a demonstration of that, take the largest number of Japanese officers known to surrender in one place, ie Jan 1946 Bangkok, Siam to Maj. Gen. Evans…that consisted of eighteen army Generals and just two navy admirals.

 

So my guess is, we see fewer mon on kaigunto when compared with Shingunto simply because there are fewer to see.

 

Kevin.

[PNSSHOGUN]

Kai Gunto Koshirae with the gilt remaining: https://page.auction.../auction/b1157203409

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

Family name on good quality mounts from a Koshirae shop rarely seen, thought it was interesting that the name in silver matched the name scratched into the fittings.

 

https://origami-token.ru/catalog/arkhiv-mechi/bolshoy_katana_khisakadzu_v_oprave_morskogo_ofitserskogo_mecha/

 

 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

2 hours ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

a Koshirae shop rarely seen

John, what shop?  How do you identify it?  I don't see any logo.

[PNSSHOGUN]

There's no shop logo, this maker used a unique style of hangers from other Kai Gunto:

 

 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Thanks John!  Wow, that Russian site has quite a collection!  Here's another kaigunto with mon on THIS PAGE.

[Bruce Pennington]

@Kiipu found this butterfly mon on a kaigunto HERE