A Japanese Katana Artfully Butchered !

[drac2k]

I hope that the Forum doesn't kick me out for showing a Japanese Katana so badly disfigured, but I thought since you guys see such beautiful swords all of the time, maybe for a change you might enjoy seeing an oddity. As I mentioned before, I enjoy collecting a variety of different swords and knives, including WW1 & WW2 Theater Made Fighting Knives. This is the first sword that I have found with the typical U.S. plexiglass & alternating aluminum washer configuration with a heavy brass pommel; so heavy as to act as counterweight and to give this sword a sense of balance. Please , no death threats, LOL.

[drac2k]

Another picture

[drac2k]

the complete sword

[Shamsy]

How weird.... some unusual things done to perfectly good swords during the war. I have a 95 with a similar new hilt of leather and plexiglass

[drac2k]

That is interesting; if you can, I would like to see a picture of it.

[Bruce Pennington]

Is it possible that this was originally modified for a Kyu gunto  handle?

 

That date is 1606!!!

[Kiipu]

These swords frequently had damage prior to acquisition and hence the various "repairs."  Keep in mind a battle field is not an optimum environment for finding a mint condition example of anything.  This is all part and parcel of the history of this sword.

 

The obverse side is as Bruce mentioned Keichō 慶長 (1596 to 1615).

Keichō

 

The visible characters on the reverse side are for a location.

肥州菊池住 = Hishū Kikuchi-jū.

Hizen Province

 

Hopefully, the Nihontō collectors will be able to shed more light about the history of this sword and it's engravings.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Kiipu

[Kiipu]

@drac2k Did the sword come with a scabbard?

[PNSSHOGUN]

Kyu Gunto alterations aren't usually as catastrophic as this!

[drac2k]

Wow, that is amazing (and sad), to think that a sword from the 1600's could have a 20th century handle!

The sword did not come with a scabbard.

The Kyu Gunto theory is interesting, but since it has the army mounts on it ,they probably are original to the sword.

[Dave R]

I am thinking along the lines of Buko-zukuri, to Kyu-Gunto and then Shin-Gunto and finally US occupation. I doubt that the forging down to a screw tang would be done by a bored US Soldier. We have seen similar before. 

[Bruce Pennington]

I would lean toward Dave's theory, too.  The plexiglass handle, to me, is completely post-war Bubba work.  The tsuba and dai-seppa are Navy, but the fuchi is army, so probably assembled by Bubba too.

[drac2k]

What could be a clue would be the thread pattern(beyond my capabilities), for the pommel ;i.e. standard coarse thread, British parallel threads, or what ever the Japanese used. If the  blade has Japanese threads than maybe it was a Kyu-Gunto. I have another question as well; I have  seen post war engraved blades(usually tantos), done by Japanese sold to US servicemen and so I was wondering is the engraving on my blade pre-war or post war?

[Bruce Pennington]

52 minutes ago, drac2k said:

I was wondering is the engraving on my blade pre-war or post war?

Your eyes, with it in hand, are the best judge.  I would look at the corrosion to see if any of it looks to have worked it's way into the engraving.  Engraving after the corrosion should be clean cut.

[Brian]

Pity is that it may have been a really good sword once.
Corrosion on the blade indicates it may have been in water or blood at some point.

[drac2k]

The engraving is deep, it looks old ,i.e. the corrosion and the and pitting are on top of the engraving instead of underneath of it, however even if it was done after the war ,75 years of misuse and storage can make it look like 100s of years old. I was wondering about the quality and the style of the engraving which would indicate whether it was done prior to WW2.

[Peter Bleed]

I vote with the side that sees this as a Meiji era re-work - - if not true and classic kyu-gunto mounts. And - to go a bit farther - if it has  boshi, and the "tsuka" disappears, I bet it could legally go back to Japan.

Peter

[Kiipu]

@drac2k Measurements please!

Sword Blade Measurement

[drac2k]

Peter, when you say that "it could legally go back to Japan," are you talking about for polishing, for confiscation, or something else ?

The blade to the  top of the tsuba measures 27" and the tang from the guard to the the top of the brass pommel is 6".

[Peter Bleed]

David, I was simply suggesting that it might NOT be treated as unsalvagable junk in Japan. It certainly would not be "confiscated" but I think it could be registered. A polish would be so expensive that it might not be "wise", but I expect that it would be possible. These things happened.

Peter

[drac2k]

Whew, that is a relief; I thought that was what you meant, but I wasn't positive.......funny where the mind wanders

[Shamsy]

On 6/16/2022 at 7:43 AM, drac2k said:

That is interesting; if you can, I would like to see a picture of it.

 

Here is my 95 with a leather and plexiglass tsuka.

 

"The plexiglass handle, to me, is completely post-war Bubba work."

 

This sort of modification was not unusual for captured, bladed weapons. It falls into the same category as naval knot-work, repainting, plaques, exotic covers for scabbard etc. Can't say for certain that this particular example is one such, but I'm reasonably confident to say it very likely is.

 

Here are some photos I've taken of similar examples from LeBar's excellent book on Japanese bayonets. 

 

As a side note, there are souvaneer bayonets with repainted scabbards (sheaths?). They grey ones, for example, are a perfect match to the couple of grey 95 scabbards posted in another thread and I imagine the link between these is the same - done by servicemen at the end of the war. They are not some kind of rare varieties of camouflage or a means to denote a military branch. The examples with several different colours on various parts also look similar to a few of the more colourful and unusual combinations we have seen on 95s. Probably some are from that (just)post-war period.

 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Both books look interesting.  Thanks for the post Steve!

[drac2k]

Very cool example of a modified type 95 sword; this is only the second one that I have seen.

While I'm sure that the swords were end of the war or post war modifications, I feel that the converted  bits of swords and bayonets made into knives were for actual fighting; as in WW1 & WW2 there was a shortage of combat knives and many non-standard types were made in machine shops on the home front to the shipboard shops in the War theatre, some of excellent quality, others little better than prison shivs.

The plexiglass & aluminum washers were often from downed planes; I can remember such a knife carried throughout the war by a service member where the handle was constructed from the parts of a kamikaze plane that crashed into his vessel.

[Brian]

As David said, most times improvised handles on knives using plexiglass and aluminium came from downed planes.
Russians did this too, as did the Americans. Seen multiple examples of field made knives done like that.