zuiho Posted May 6, 2022 Report Posted May 6, 2022 Hello, The post by "Butch " on March 27 featuring a type 3 gunto by Zuiho has prompted me to contribute my example. Listed below is my personal assessment and may not be entirely accurate but here goes: BLADE TYPE: Type 3 ww2 shin gunto by RJT approved smith ( as indicated by star stamp) SHAPE (sugata): Iorimune PERIOD: Showa WW2 PROVINCE: LENGTH (nagasa): 27 1/8 " , 87 cm. WIDTH (machi) : 1 5/16", 33 mm. (motohaba) : 7/8", 23 mm. THICKNESS: CURVATURE (sori) : shallow 5/8", 15 mm. FORGING (jihada/kitae) : itame Temper line ( hamon/yakiba) : Nioi based suguha midare with rough tobiyaki Note: Partial Choji-midare utsuri appears to be present on both sides. ( I call it utsuri as no line of nie or nioi is present ) POINT (boshi) : ko maru on chu kissaki TANG (nakago) : iriyamagata , kesho yasurimei SIGNATURE: signed on ura : ZUI HO SAKU with STAR stamp above Zui. DATED on omote: Kinoe or 21 st (year since start of zodiacal cycle), SARU (year of the Monkey ), NI ( 2nd), GATSU ( month) . This zodiacal date is equivalent to March, 1944. REMARKS : An assembly number 435 stamped on mune behind hamachi. Double press studs present on saya. Two screws placed one on each side hold eleven inch tsuka. Tsuka has wine-colored lacquered ito over imitation same' . Notes : The other smith name of Zuiho is Shigefusa. His real name is Kojima Kameta and lived in Tokushima prefecture. He had 5 students at his forge. Reference: Samurai Sword Kanetoyo Art Museum website, (Tokyo, Japan) . Cheers, William G. 1 1 Quote
francois2605 Posted May 6, 2022 Report Posted May 6, 2022 Hello William, that's a nice Type 3 you have here. Some minor remarks regarding your description: Shin-gunto refers to a type 94/98 koshirae, yours is a type 3. The sugata is shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune only describes the geometry of the sword's back. The nagasa is too long and cannot be correct, gunto normally have a length between 60 and 65 cm. You probably measured the total sword length which isn't the nagasa. Quote
Bruce Pennington Posted May 6, 2022 Report Posted May 6, 2022 12 hours ago, zuiho said: REMARKS : An assembly number 435 stamped on mune behind hamachi. Double press studs present on saya. Two screws placed one on each side hold eleven inch tsuka. Tsuka has wine-colored lacquered ito over imitation same' . Notes : The other smith name of Zuiho is Shigefusa. His real name is Kojima Kameta and lived in Tokushima prefecture. He had 5 students at his forge. William, Nice presentation! And thanks for adding yours to the database of RJT blades! Boy, they really struck that star lightly sometimes! Had to zoom in to see it. It was also an opportunity for me to fix my files. I had the wrong Shigefusa listed in my RJT chart! And I didn't have the connection that he had also signed as Zuiho. Now I do! As for "shingunto", it is my understanding that all WWII army swords were shingunto. The word literally means "shin" - new, "gun" - army, "to"- sword; or "new army sword." "Kyugunto" is "old army sword" referring to the Western-styled sabres. Now, oddly, "kaigunto" literally means "Navy army sword" but that is just how the grammar workout out. "gunto" became the vernacular for "military sword". The 'type 3' was in truth a variant of the Type 98 and had no official 'type' designator. It is a label created by collectors, most visibly our beloved Ohmura-san who used the term on his site, but is more accurately called the Contingency model of the Type 98, or Rinji-seishiki in Japanese. I use "RS" for an abbreviation or simply 'Rinji' (although Nick pointed out that 'Rinji' by itself means something derogatory in slang! Ha!). You can read all about this on Nick Komiya's articles here: Deflating the Myth of the Type 3 sword and Unveiling the Rinjiseishiki Sword 1940 1 Quote
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