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Tojin Masakuni

Volker62

By Volker62
in Military Swords of Japan

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george trotter Grand Master

george trotter

Posted
Posted

Very nice Volker, great example of a RJT sword and mounts from the Kyoto/Osaka/Hyogo area...always good quality.

Nice to see another nakago mune number as this makes about 3-4-5 RJT smiths from this area now recorded with mune numbers (Bruce can confirm?). Interesting.

Masakuni Osaka? 5/1944  78

Endo Tomonari Kobe Hyogo 7/1944  24

Kunihide Kyoto 8/1944  90

Kunihide Kyoto 8/1944  98

Kunihide Kyoto 8/1944  99

   ?  ?  ?  ?

Interesting to us RJT nerds anyway.

PS I would guess that Kunihide's blades all being the same date and numbered 90-99 would be his RJT scheme monthly output of 10 all being delivered to the polishing/mounting shop in a monthly bundle.

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Bruce Pennington Grand Master

Bruce Pennington

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6 hours ago, george trotter said:

Kunihide Kyoto 8/1944  90

Kunihide Kyoto 8/1944  98

Kunihide Kyoto 8/1944  99

I agree George that this would point to RJT numbering, not shop numbering.  If Volker's fittings don't have numbers, I feel his "75" is an RJT number too.  It wouldn't make sense that a fitter shop would go to the trouble to number a blade but not put the number on the fittings.

 

I don't have these Kunihide blades in my files.  Do you have photos or links so I can log them in?

 

I do have an addition to your list:

Masaharu (location unknown) 10/1944 "6" on mune

 

Also, I have 2 oddballs:

Mitsunobu (who is listed RJT, but the blade isn't dated and no star - from one of your articles!)  707 on mune (it's mounted Kaigunto, so that should explain the lack of star)

and

Toyo Knife Co. mei  No date  510 on mune

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george trotter Grand Master

george trotter

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Bruce Pennington said:

I agree George that this would point to RJT numbering, not shop numbering.  If Volker's fittings don't have numbers, I feel his "75" is an RJT number too.  It wouldn't make sense that a fitter shop would go to the trouble to number a blade but not put the number on the fittings.

 

I don't have these Kunihide blades in my files.  Do you have photos or links so I can log them in?

 

I do have an addition to your list:

Masaharu (location unknown) 10/1944 "6" on mune

 

Also, I have 2 oddballs:

Mitsunobu (who is listed RJT, but the blade isn't dated and no star - from one of your articles!)  707 on mune (it's mounted Kaigunto, so that should explain the lack of star)

and

Toyo Knife Co. mei  No date  510 on mune

Hi Bruce,

I must have misled you by accident - when I said the numbers 90-98 are Kunihide's monthly RJT output of 10 I didn't mean the RJT put those numbers on...I actually mean the mune numbers here are most likely polish or mounting shop numbers. put on by them when Kunihide sent his monthly bundle of 10 RJT blades over for polish/mounting.  I actually am coming to think that all these various numbers etc are most likely just shop tally numbers - not RJT or smith numbers.

 

About the Kunihide details....no I don't have pics...the RJT Takashima Kunihide of Fushimi Kyoto details are from old posts and other sources I noted down years ago...only the appraisal paper 98 and mine 90 are pics.

I only listed them here with the Masakuni  75 (sorry, I said 78 by mistake)  and Tomonari 24 examples because they are all Kobe/Hyogo - Osaka-Kyoto area smiths.

 

Hope this helps?

 

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Leen Collaborator

Leen

Posted
Posted

Fantastisches schwert Volker, in fabelhafter condition….  I am trying to get good Gendaito in the Netherlands, but you are certainly doing a good job in Germany. Keep it on and keep the pictures coming

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Bruce Pennington Grand Master

Bruce Pennington

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Posted
4 hours ago, Volker62 said:

no stamp's of any kind....

Thank you!

 

1 hour ago, george trotter said:

I actually am coming to think that all these various numbers etc are most likely just shop tally numbers - not RJT or smith numbers.

You may turn out to be right George, I'm open to that, but I'm puzzled by things like Volker's gunto.  It's clearly an expensive custom order, not a refit in my opinion.  So why would a fitting shop take the time to stamp a number on a blade but not on the fittings?  What purpose would the blade number serve?

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george trotter Grand Master

george trotter

Posted
Posted

Bruce...maybe the tang number is the polish shop number and fittings numbers (if present) are put on by mounting shops? 

Like my private order Masakazu (RJT smith)  in RS mounts - tang stamped 1129 (polisher number?), all metal fittings stamped 'ni' 1129 , maybe mounting shop number 'linked' to polisher number because in this case the shop did both polish and mounts?

Usually the number on tangs is different to numbers on fittings - maybe because they went to separate shops for polish and mounting?

 

Of course we need more study on this, but some tangs do have / don't have numbers....some fittings do have / don't have numbers...some tang and fittings numbers match each other...most don't....this doesn't seem like a "sensible structure' for a production output recording/tracking system.

 

I tend to think that the RJT scheme kept track of a smith's output by a different, simple  "accounting" scheme - one that shows up on the sword  as the star stamp. This star is tallied next to the smiths name and at the end of each month the Army just checks RJT smith X - if he has 10 star stamped swords sent in last month and this matches the 10 boxes of tamahagane they sent him...all is good. If he got 10 boxes but only sent in 8 swords, the RJT inspector would check him out...no need for 100s of different number systems?

Of course, I am probably wrong about this also...probably better to wait til you find the real answer Bruce.

Keep at it,

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