Question about My Wakizashi

[Tin Tin]

Hello,

 

I am a new member of the forums so please bare with me. Quite a while back, I had purchased this blade. The signature reads Bishu Osafune Sukemitsu. Is there any way to tell the generation based on this signature? Also, I noticed that the reverse of the tang has a date but the date seems to be incomplete. It only reads Ni Gatsu Hi. There is no year. Only a month. Why would this be done? Any information would be helpful!

 

Respectfully,

Nathan S

[sabiji]

Hi Nathan, welcome here!
Well, there are quite a few Osafune Sukemitsu, more important, and less important. 
For me, it would be important to check the style of your blade to see if it matches the typical Sukemitsu way of working. 

But if the signature is shoshin I'm afraid it will be more likely a blade made on a large scale during that period, with no way to attribute it to a specific Sukemitsu.

If you do a little research, you will find that in the Osafune forge, a large part of the blades were made in the second or eighth month. The Japanese were very superstitious and blades made in these months tended to have a positive bias. It doesn't matter so much when exactly it was made. One could see it as a sales promotion measure.
 

[Nobody]

The signature is questionable.

The correct kanji for Bishu Osafune Sukemitsu must be 備州長舩祐光.

The signature on the tang of your blade lacks 舩 (fune).

[Tin Tin]

Are there any examples of a signature lacking a character? Does this mean that the item is fake?

[Scogg]

1 hour ago, Nathan S said:

Are there any examples of a signature lacking a character? Does this mean that the item is fake?

It means the signature is likely fake. The sword appears to be genuine. Often times, a sword would be given a fake signature in an attempt to increase it's value or provenance. Unfortunately it's fairly common to find a fake signature 

For what it's worth:

mei = signature 
gimei = fake signature
mumei = no signature

 

Best of luck,
-Sam