Kogatana Mei Translation - 国善定兼門

[tbonesullivan]

A friend of mine heard that I can "read Japanese on swords", so he gave me this Kogatana from a tanto setting he has to look at.  I'm fairly certain the Kanji are 国 善 定 兼 門, however my knowledge of actual Japanese is 1 year of college Japanese about 20 years ago.

 

KUNI YOSHI SADA KANE HIRO? I'm going to assume that it is a name, but many of those characters can be read in multiple ways. The last character alone could be MON, HIRO, KADO or possibly other things.

[Stephen]

First one is Seki ..last is kado

[tbonesullivan]

26 minutes ago, Stephen said:

First one is Seki ..last is kado

Thanks! That would not be the first time I've gotten 関 SEKI confused with KUNI. Probably won't be the last.

 

Looks like there were 3 KANEKADO smiths around the late 17th early 18th century. The Tanto it came with is Mumei, but definitely looks good. I'm trying to convince my friend to send it out for a better polish.

[Stephen]

Mei on kogatana are seldom the smith.

More like a tribute. Won't have anything to do with tanto.