Wakizashi

[Alex1984]

Here's what the seller says:

Very nice historically important package.
Sayagaki stating “Invasion of Okinawa, April 1, 1945”.

There is no habaki and I think that the entire assembly is a type of field construct.
The nakago-jiri is misaligned with the shinogi-ji. I am going to cautiously lean towards the blade being osuriage, which was my original assessment when held in hand. The sugata simply feels that this was originally a longer sword. The nakago is well finished for an osuriage blade though, carefully reshaped and finished, like ubu.

Muromachi Period, 1500-1600 AD.

I think that this was actually worn and used during the battle. I suspect that the shirasaya, etc is a battlefield repair. There were teams on the ground doing field repairs during WWII.

[Alex1984]

Please tell me is he correct, and how much can it cost? Thank you so much.

[PNSSHOGUN]

At best it is a military relic, so a couple hundred dollars. The value as a Japanese made wakizashi is virtually nil.

[Alex1984]

Thank you so much. 

[Dave R]

 There are a few swords in shirasaya that we know were taken into battle, usually (always?) with a leather combat cover sewn on and some form of haikan attached. Without a habaki or a fuchi of some sort it would have come apart in use.

 

 "Buy the blade, not the story!"

[Bruce Pennington]

I agree with Dave.  This looks like a shirasaya, not a field-made koshirae.  Value depends on your feel for it's authenticity and your personal preferences for collecting. The pictures don't give sufficient close-up detail to detect hamon, so from a distance, it looks like a badly treated sword, Japanese, but badly treated.

[vajo]

Hard to say something about the blade. I tried to see under the photoshop filters some more details and see suguha-ba hamon with an o-maru boshi. I could be late muromchi/ shinto blade. The housing of the blade is a shira saya, not a wartime koshirae. It would be interesting to translate the sayagaki. Maybe it would be better you can put it in the translation thread.

[Alex1984]

  On 12/14/2020 at 4:54 PM, vajo said:

Hard to say something about the blade. I tried to see under the photoshop filters some more details and see suguha-ba hamon with an o-maru boshi. I could be late muromchi/ shinto blade. The housing of the blade is a shira saya, not a wartime koshirae. It would be interesting to translate the sayagaki. Maybe it would be better you can put it in the translation thread.

Expand  

Hello. Created a topic for decryption.