Post-war Farmer Modification

[Bruce Pennington]

Thought I'd post this one for interest.  Found by a friend who got it for almost nothing.  Translated by @xiayang on THIS THREAD as Mori Kunimoto, and has a prominent large Seki stamp.  No way to know who built the handle, but I think it's reminiscent of the swords stripped and refitted by the Filipinos after the war for use on the farm, etc.

 

[Ray Singer]

When I first started collecting got to meet Col. Hartley entirely outside the collecting circle (I happened to hire his nephew as an assistant at my gallery). One of the first stories he told me was of driving past a field and seeing a Japanese sword being used as to cut crops. That sword, he said, was a Heian tachi. I don't know if it was the Ko-Bizen he often shared at shows, but it may have been. 

[george trotter]

Hi Ray,

Same story. I was in Bougainville Island (Solomons - Guadalcanal etc) in mining in 1976-77 and I also saw local natives using WWII Japanese swords to cut crops, grass etc. Amazing.

I never had a close look so don't know what sort of quality the blades were.

That was how things were done there then....

Regards,

[Dave R]

 There is a bronze age sword, now in a museum that was collected from a UK farm labourer over a century ago. He was using it as a hedging tool and the collector bought it off him there and then.

 Similarly my first Sikkin-Panjang was bought from a local "runner" who had again used it for a while as a hedging tool. I bought a really nice double hammer gun from the same guy. I use the term runner in the sense that he made money by scouring the locality for antiques and curios which he then took to local dealers to sell..... All very "Lovejoy" but that was Shropshire in the 1970's.

[Matsunoki]

5 hours ago, Dave R said:

 There is a bronze age sword, now in a museum that was collected from a UK farm labourer over a century ago. He was using it as a hedging tool and the collector bought it off him there and then.

 Similarly my first Sikkin-Panjang was bought from a local "runner" who had again used it for a while as a hedging tool. I bought a really nice double hammer gun from the same guy. I use the term runner in the sense that he made money by scouring the locality for antiques and curios which he then took to local dealers to sell..... All very "Lovejoy" but that was Shropshire in the 1970's.

Those were the days……….it was very similar in Norfolk UK. French bayonets used as pokers, swords to cut/slash hedges….all very rural.