Kanehide Gendaito Rinji questions

[John C]

Hello everyone:

I have some questions about this Kanehide gendaito you all might be able to answer.

1. Do you think the mounts are original to the blade? I ask because there is no makugi-ana near the bottom of the nakago.

2. Why would there be two sets of painted assembly numbers? Is that related to possible changing the koshirae?

3. The blade is star stamped with two small seki stamps (one in the date and one on the mune). The stamps are correct, however, seki and not NA stamp? Is that common?

Thank you,

John C.

[John C]

More pics of the blade... taken from the auction site. I could not capture any good shots.

John C.

[David Flynn]

Nice sword.    I think, the smith does the first ana and then If the Koshirae maker doesn't like the position, he adds a second one to make the Koshirae fit.

[mecox]

John, looks a good blade.  Can you show pics of all stamps, these are of interest.

[mecox]

John, good info on Kanehide in George Trotter download   (similar green number style ..his "A14" yours "A930?"

 

 

[mecox]

more on Kanehide in here:  

 

[francois2605]

3 of the pictures shown in this thread come from this Yakiba's page: https://yakiba.com/kanehide-nakata/.

 

If you look at the Yakiba's sword description, you'll see that the sword comes with a shirasaya, not a koshirae.

 

I'm a bit confused. Are those 6 pictures from the same sword ? I'd say no.

 

Even the paint on the nakago is different:

 

 

 

 

 

[Bruno]

Can you please close up of both sides of the yokote?

 

[Bruce Pennington]

The yakiba blade and the one John posted are two different blades, both dated 1944.  I have them both on file.  The use of the small Na stamp was dominant in 1943, but was tapering off in '44 and a few are seen.  The small Seki became dominant in 1944/45, with a few seen in '43.  So there was overlap in '44 of both stamps.  

 

John, I have seen several blades with double painted numbers, some of them, like this, with double ana.  To me, this speaks to the idea the blade was re-mounted at some point, but we can only speculate.

 

Yakiba blade:

 

 

 

Even the yakiba blade was double numbered:

 

 

I don't have close shots of the blade John posted.

[John C]

  On 1/13/2023 at 8:47 AM, francois2605 said:

I'm a bit confused. Are those 6 pictures from the same sword ? I'd say no.

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Francois:

I see what you mean. I will try to take close ups of my blade and post them for comparison. But I do not have very good cameras.

[John C]

  On 1/13/2023 at 8:47 AM, francois2605 said:

3 of the pictures shown in this thread come from this Yakiba's page

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Francois:

You are correct! After looking at the sword in detail, the seller used pictures of the actual sword and "augmented" the listing with pictures of the Yakiba sword! Attached are pics of my sword in hand. 

Everyone please comment on this sword. My feeling is the sword and mei are correct, however what the seller did bothers me.

John C.

[John C]

  On 1/13/2023 at 7:20 AM, mecox said:

Can you show pics of all stamps,

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Mal:

Here are the stamps.

John C.

[John C]

  On 1/13/2023 at 7:20 AM, mecox said:

Can you show pics of all stamps

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Mal:

And the star stamp.

John C.

[Brian]

Star stamp is of course always a good thing to see. Nice RJT sword.

[reeder]

1. Maybe. If it fits well then definitely. Hard to mix and match blades and saya.

2. Don’t know, not something that’d interest me anyways. 
3. Kanehide was a seki smith and many of the ones I’ve owned and seen throughout the years had small seki stamp in addition the to the star stamp. 
 

always liked the Kanehide blades I’ve seen, minus they were usually shorter. I’d still have one if the nagasa were >= 27”. 

[Kiipu]

  On 1/13/2023 at 3:33 AM, John C said:

2. Why would there be two sets of painted assembly numbers? Is that related to possible changing the koshirae?

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Star stamped swords from Gifu Prefecture usually have two sets of painted numbers on them.  As far as I can tell, one is the Nagoya Arsenal production number and the other is the koshirae subassembly number?  Regardless of one's personal opinion, there does seem to be a pattern to these painted Nagoya RJT blades.  The colors noted so far are red, green, and blue.

[John C]

  On 1/13/2023 at 7:12 PM, Kiipu said:

The colors noted so far are red, green, and blue.

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Thank you Thomas. Mine uses the green and blue paint. In addition, the blue is written using the letter A with Japanese numbers on the mei side and Arabic numerals on the date side. Malcom Cox has a Kanehide with the same style of blue numbering. So I guess the numbering is valid, at least.

John C.

[John C]

  On 1/13/2023 at 3:01 PM, Bruce Pennington said:

To me, this speaks to the idea the blade was re-mounted

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Bruce:

I concur. The blade does not have the second mekugi-ana near the base of the nakago, as would be typical with Rinji mounts. In addition, the scabbard is black lacquered wood and the tsuka has only one chuso button. And oddly, the ito was white (now filthy with dirt and mud) and not lacquered. So would it have originally been a type 98 mounting?

John C.

[Bruce Pennington]

  On 1/14/2023 at 12:32 AM, John C said:

So would it have originally been a type 98 mounting?

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That would be my theory, but it’s just pure speculation.

[vajo]

If the tsuka had no second hole i would not be afraid that the koshirae wasn't made for the sword. Maybe the first order was type 98 and was changed to type 3?

Usually the type3 had 2 mekugi ana. 

 

I like the sword.

[Kiipu]

  On 1/14/2023 at 12:32 AM, John C said:

The blade does not have the second mekugi-ana near the base of the nakago, as would be typical with Rinji mounts.

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The shinobi ana 忍び孔 was frequently added by the fitting shop and not by the swordsmith.  It is not unusual to see Type 100 blades with only the mekugi ana 目釘穴.  There was a Type 100 which had a shinobi ana drilled right through the Tōkyō 1st Arsenal serial number.  This would imply that the serial number was stamped before the hole was drilled.  There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to Japanese military swords.

Shinobi Ana 忍び孔

[Bruno]

  On 1/14/2023 at 12:26 AM, John C said:

the same style of blue numbering

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SEKI RJT ( star stamped) gendaito have often those big painted assembly numbers on the nakago, quite typical. 

 

One should not remove the paint though I agree it is not always pleasant to look at.

[vajo]

Sometimes old blades have rests of paintings too on the nakago. I think it was a common practice in all times to mark the swords for the makers of the koshirae.

[John C]

Thomas, Bruno, and Chris:

Thank you all for the info. I thought it was interesting that the English letter A was used along with Japanese 930 on the mei side and Arabic 930 on the date side. Could they have been using parts (or their bins) from Western manufacturers?

 

John C.