A little help requested with Type 98 Shin-Gunto by Fukujima Yoshisada

[tbonesullivan]

Just got in another pretty interesting Katana, which is signed by Fukujima Yoshisada.  I think I've gotten all the characters right, but was just looking for confirmation, and maybe pronunciation.

 

My reading of the Mei is: 雲州 宍 道 住 福島 善定 - UNSHUU ? ? JU FUKUJIMA YOSHISADA. The third character I had to look up using the 宀 radical, to get 宍, which looks to be a Hyogai kanji, read as "NIKU" or "SHISHI"

 

I have also considered that the 道 MICHI could be another form, 通. 

 

The Nengo is also somewhat interesting, as it uses what looks to be the Archaic Hyogai form of Yon : 昭 和 十 亖 年 十 月 日 . I haven't seen that on a Nengo Before, but with the sword being from Izumo Province, I was wondering if older forms of Kanji were more common there.

 

As always, any help is appreciated!

[uwe]

I think you can translate “宍道” as “Shinji”….
Regarding the date, the carver simply avoided to chisel “四” because of its meaning. I’ve seen this several times.

[tbonesullivan]

16 hours ago, uwe said:

I think you can translate “宍道” as “Shinji”….
Regarding the date, the carver simply avoided to chisel “四” because of its meaning. I’ve seen this several times.

Oh wow. I never really thought about that. Most Gunto I see are from the 1940s, so I've rarely seen ones from Showa 14. Might be why I've never seen this before.

[DTM72]

19 hours ago, uwe said:

I think you can translate “宍道” as “Shinji”….
Regarding the date, the carver simply avoided to chisel “四” because of its meaning. I’ve seen this several times.

Just so I can learn, why would the carver avoid "四" ? It has another meaning besides 4?

[Brian]

Death
It's not written the same, but pronounced similar. So is often avoided out of superstition.

[tbonesullivan]

On 7/14/2022 at 11:15 AM, DTM72 said:

Just so I can learn, why would the carver avoid "四" ? It has another meaning besides 4?

 

On 7/14/2022 at 12:57 PM, Brian said:

Death
It's not written the same, but pronounced similar. So is often avoided out of superstition.

 

There is mention of this on the Wiktionary page, so it doesn't just apply to sword tangs. The pronunciation "yon" is used more often for this reason.

[DTM72]

Thank you all for the education on that. Much Appreciated!