What are these things? Late war? Replicas? Fakes?

[NotTooMuch]

Hey everybody. I wanna start this off by saying I paid nothing for these so don't worry about hurting my feelings. I also have no intention of selling them so no worries about me trying to con somebody as that's just not my style. I actually saved them from ending up at a garbage dump some years ago while living in Nashville, TN. As I found them in a pile destined for the garbage and have been carrying them around with me ever since. I'll readily admit I'm no Japanese sword expert but I do have a healthy interest in WWII as almost my entire family was involved in one way or another at the time but mainly in Europe. These two swords are obviously a matching set as they have the same thing engraved onto the blade on both swords. What it says I have no idea. I've spoken with a few people that have told me they thought it was actually chinese writing on the blades. They are most definitely old and all of the materials appear to be period correct. One scabbard is solid metal the other is wood covered in leather and aluminum. The big red flag for me that they may not be real is the construction of the handles. They are both wood wrapped in a single sheet of metal and covered with black cord. One is wrapped in copper and the other aluminum. I've been searching for years and if they are replicas I've never seen another constructed exactly like it. Blades are fairly unremarkable aside from the inscriptions on both. Also there appears to have been blood on both at some point as some had coagulated around the handle. No idea how it got there but it's not mine. If they are replicas they are really old and very well made. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[sword_guy]

It looks pretty fake to me

The tsuba looks very different from traditional Type 98 tsubas (it doesn't have the same chrysanthemum symbols and is instead almost an asterisk symbol) as does the fuchi (no chrysanthemum, etc.)

The kanji on the blade while I cannot read it is usually associated with fakes (from what I have seen)

There is no samegawa that I can see on the tsuka and the Tsuka-ito seems kind of sloppily done with a fair amount of unevenness on it. The color of the tsuka-ito also liike wrong but that could be the lighting.

 

The overall blade profile looks more like a wakizashi which as far as I know did exist in WWII type 98 guntos but usually they had the same sayas as the longer ones (someone please correct me if I am wrong)

The saya also has no symbols, same as the tsuba and fuchi.

 

There is also no saya clip (I don't know if there is a proper term for this...) which would hold the blade into the saya although there is a hole for it in the tsuba.

 

All in all looks pretty fake but I am somewhat new so I defer to the older and more knowledgeable members.

[vajo]

Deco swords from somewhere outside Japan.

[Bruce Pennington]

Not Japanese.  
I don’t know what kind of swords the Chinese carried around. But the emblem on the tsuba doesn’t look like something even they would use.

[sword_guy]

The saya looks like it is trying to copy the Type 98 saya to me

[Shamsy]

Cheap wall-hangers.