Sword ID help please

[Ledheadforlife]

Hello all, brand new member here. After years of looking around and tire kicking I finally pulled the trigger last night on what I believe to be an original WW2 NCO sword, it was  advertised as such in an online auction but after I won it I began to get a little paranoid. So if you gents would lend me your expertise I would be eternally grateful. I don't have it in hand yet but the seller took some pretty good pics which I'm gonna try to post below. I just wanna know the usual, is it real? What is it exactly(early war, late war, is it a 95 gunto for instance) and what's it worth. I don't know anything about these swords other than I've always wanted one. The only reason I felt comfortable bidding on it is because the seller had a couple thousand transactions on this site with near 100 percent positive feedback, but I'd like to be certain that it's the real deal. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

[DTM72]

Hey Andrew. Just giving my opinions on this but wanted to get the ball rolling for you. All the parts you have look to be WWII vintage. Nothing in this assembly would have come from a type 95 NCO sword. What I do see is a type 94/98 tsuka handle in good shape. Hard to tell much about the tsuba handguard from the pics shown. My opinion is that it is a late Edo period plain tsuba and has been painted brownish redish along with a couple of the seppa spacers. The blade looks like a type 97 navy kaigunto stainless blade but cannot say for 100% sure without seeing closer pics of the blade itself. The saya scabbard looks to be a type 98 with leather cover.

Form what I can tell, you have a mixture of a WWII sword. Hopefully you didn't break the bank on it. As a word of advice, post in the wanted section what you are looking for and a price range. You should be able to get a 100% authentic type 98 (depending on condtion, type of blade, etc.) in a range from $750-$1250.

 

Dan

[Bruce Pennington]

Andrew,

I appreciate your interest in WWII!  It's what I collect as well.  Recommend spending some time reading Ohmura's invaluable, and free, website on gunto Military Sowrds of Imperial Japan.  There's some history, but mostly it's page after page of excellent photos of the various types.  You'll quickly get a free education on the various Army, Navy, officer and NCO types.

 

This style with civil tsuba and leather clad wooden saya often hold a civil blade brought to the war and refitted.  You're lucky to still have the leather locking strap!  I don't study them closely, but maybe @BANGBANGSAN and/or @Kiipu can tell if this is an early war zoheito, which was an early attempt at making mass produced factory blades. Ohmura has a page on that too! 

 

Can we get a photo of the other side of the nakago (tang), too? Also, full length, bare blade; and a good clear photo of the blade tip?

 

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

Not a Zoheito, looks more like a late war unsigned Seki-To.

[Kiipu]

A quick way to spot an early zōheitō is to look and see if it has a blade fuller or not.

[BANGBANGSAN]

3 hours ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

Not a Zoheito, looks more like a late war unsigned Seki-To.

Agree

[Ledheadforlife]

Thanks so much for the info guys, ya'll are really helping me out and I appreciate it so much! Ok, so the consensus is this is a legit ww2 era sword, but it's some sort of cobbled together Heinz 57 mutt sword? Ok, not what I wanted to hear but I'll live. So Dan, you think the tsuba is Edo period, as in 1800's? So the tsuba is older than the rest of the sword? If the tsuba has been painted, what color was is originally or should it be now? How can I tell how old the blade is, or is it just sometime shortly before or during WW2? Seki-to, is that a reference to where it was made? It doesn't appear to have a blood groove, is that right? Some have it and some don't? Sorry for all the noob questions, I'll go ahead and attach some more pics below.

[Bruce Pennington]

Andrew,

The other guys can answer you questions about the tsuba.  The fuller groove, or bohi, is found on all sorts of sword blades from all eras.  Their reference to it concerning zoheito is that they almost always have them.  Yours doesn't, so maybe the whole thing, except the tsuba, is a late-war assembly.  I have seen gunto with civil tsuba, as if the owner had one from back home and used it to personalize his sword.  That is an option.  Other options - shortage of supplies at the end of the war, so shops used what they had on-hand; and finally, as suggested above, post-war efforts by an owner to complete a gunto with missing parts.  Any of these are possible.

[Kiipu]

22 hours ago, Ledheadforlife said:

I don't have it in hand yet ....

 

Before coming to conclusions as to provenance, lets wait until it arrives and see exactly what kind of markings are on the nakago.  In addition, the habaki can be taken off and an overall view of the blade can be seen.  Patience is a human virtue after all.

[Ledheadforlife]

47 minutes ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Andrew,

The other guys can answer you questions about the tsuba.  The fuller groove, or bohi, is found on all sorts of sword blades from all eras.  Their reference to it concerning zoheito is that they almost always have them.  Yours doesn't, so maybe the whole thing, except the tsuba, is a late-war assembly.  I have seen gunto with civil tsuba, as if the owner had one from back home and used it to personalize his sword.  That is an option.  Other options - shortage of supplies at the end of the war, so shops used what they had on-hand; and finally, as suggested above, post-war efforts by an owner to complete a gunto with missing parts.  Any of these are possible.

 

 

Yeah I guess those are all possibilities, thanks Bruce

[Ledheadforlife]

21 minutes ago, Kiipu said:

 

Before coming to conclusions as to provenance, lets wait until it arrives and see exactly what kind of markings are on the nakago.  In addition, the habaki can be taken off and an overall view of the blade can be seen.  Patience is a human virtue after all.

 

 

Sounds good, I'll come back once I have my hands on it, thanks again!

[DTM72]

Andrew,

The first couple pics you posted didn't really show the blade at all. The nakago (tang) only has very light coloring, making me think it was possibly Navy stainless. Alot of the Naval stainless blades had nice file marks, like yours. Now that you have included more pics, I can see an actual hamon in just one picture. So it is not a Navy stainless blade. That leads to the question of oil or water qwenched and if it is gendaito or Showato. The file marks on the habaki are not normally found on wartime blades, so that adds to the curiousity of this one. 

Lastly, the tsuba. Again, with limited pics, it is hard to tell what it is from. Once you get it in hand, disassembled, and additional pics taken, we can help you out more.

 

No worries though...you have an actual WWII Japanese sword that is not a replica or Chinese knock-off. My only concern was that the seller advertised it to you, and everyone else, that it was an NCO or type 95. That is 100% incorrect.

[Brian]

Showato hamon...oil quenched. Wartime arsenal blade

[Ledheadforlife]

9 hours ago, DTM72 said:

Andrew,

The first couple pics you posted didn't really show the blade at all. The nakago (tang) only has very light coloring, making me think it was possibly Navy stainless. Alot of the Naval stainless blades had nice file marks, like yours. Now that you have included more pics, I can see an actual hamon in just one picture. So it is not a Navy stainless blade. That leads to the question of oil or water qwenched and if it is gendaito or Showato. The file marks on the habaki are not normally found on wartime blades, so that adds to the curiousity of this one. 

Lastly, the tsuba. Again, with limited pics, it is hard to tell what it is from. Once you get it in hand, disassembled, and additional pics taken, we can help you out more.

 

No worries though...you have an actual WWII Japanese sword that is not a replica or Chinese knock-off. My only concern was that the seller advertised it to you, and everyone else, that it was an NCO or type 95. That is 100% incorrect.

Ok, thanks again for the help, I'd be lost without you guys. I'm having to look up the meaning for most of the terminology you are using. The file marks were concerning to me because I haven't seen them on any other examples I've found online(not that I've seen many examples at all since I'm brand new to the game) The sword was not advertised as a 95, that was just an uneducated guess on my part, but it WAS advertised as being an NCO, and you're saying it's most certainly not?

[Brian]

The Type 95 IS the NCO pattern. Aluminium cast handle.
So this isn't an NCO, nope.

[Bruce Pennington]

13 hours ago, Ledheadforlife said:

The file marks were concerning to me

The file marks - yasurime - are a classic sign of legitimate Japanese swords and are found on all Japanese nakago, even NCO blades.  If you have seen some online without them, it's likely a blurry photo or the lines are obscured by rust/corrosion.

 

You can see the various styles of yasurime here:  http://japaneseswordindex.com/terms/terms2.htm

[Ledheadforlife]

Ok, so I've got the sword in hand, I'm not too keen on taking it apart cause I've literally never done it before, but the tsuba is loose and rattles a little, is this normal and is there anything I can do about it?

[DTM72]

Andrew,

 

it is not uncomon for the tsuba to become loose. Over time, the wood of the tsuka shrinks slightly and creates space between the fuchi, seppa, tsuba. I did notice in your original pics that there is a mix of different seppa. You may need to add a thin seppa to take up the space, or swap out the cheaper looking brass seppa between the habaki and the tsuba for a thicker seppa of WWII vintage. Once you get everything apart, please take a photo of the tsuba and seppa laid out next to eachother.

 

A quick video of tsuka removal can be found on Youtube.

 

[Ledheadforlife]

5 hours ago, DTM72 said:

Andrew,

 

it is not uncomon for the tsuba to become loose. Over time, the wood of the tsuka shrinks slightly and creates space between the fuchi, seppa, tsuba. I did notice in your original pics that there is a mix of different seppa. You may need to add a thin seppa to take up the space, or swap out the cheaper looking brass seppa between the habaki and the tsuba for a thicker seppa of WWII vintage. Once you get everything apart, please take a photo of the tsuba and seppa laid out next to eachother.

 

A quick video of tsuka removal can be found on Youtube.

 

Thanks so much for the help, you guys have all been great, and thanks for the video, that's exactly what I needed to see.