Real or fake

[Kyle68]

What do you guys think? Authentic or fake?

[Larason2]

It's a Chinese reproduction. Clues are the shape of the fuchi/kashira, texture of the cheap brass, poor quality ito wrap. No seppa, cheap brass tsuba, blade of wrong shape with no hamon, with burnished polish over the whole sword, plain copper habaki of the wrong shape, too short nakago, not filed. The saya poorly finished, with inexpensive brass fittings that don't really fit well, brass ring instead of a kurikata.

[French nihonto]

the sword is antique but polished to the bone, very tired.

the mount is an amateur assembly.

[Kyle68]

how old is the blade? 

[French nihonto]

In view of the sugata's shape. (Maybe the photo is misleading) I'll say Shinto, second half Edo 

[Brian]

Yeah, I think the blade is real but all the mounts are homemade.

[mywei]

FYI signed Soshu ju Hirotsugu

[Nobody]

The mei looks to be 相州住廣次 - Hirotsugu in Soshu.

If it is genuine, the blade was made in Muromachi period.

 

[vajo]

I wonder about the ashi and the fittings. I see this on uchigatana. Maybe a meiji revival piece? 

[Bruce Pennington]

What is on the kabutogane?

 

The blade has hada, but no hamon.  The kissaki is shaped well but no yokote.  What is this saying?  Bad polishes over the decades?

[Rivkin]

Really bad condition, nakago probably cleanup or blasted at one point, really weird sugata especially if its shoshin.

I would not rate it as highly collectable.

[Larason2]

I stand corrected! Still, the poor blade has been very thoroughly defaced if it is authentic, and the fittings are definitely not high quality ones. I still have much to learn!

[Bruce Pennington]

My google translate app says this is 

"19 Steps"

and 

"Tatsuo Obayashi"

[mywei]

It is possible that "歩十九" may be an abbreviation of some sort of IJA military formation e.g 歩兵第19連隊 (19th infantry regiment)

[Bruce Pennington]

1 hour ago, mywei said:

It is possible that "歩十九" may be an abbreviation of some sort of IJA military formation e.g 歩兵第19連隊 (19th infantry regiment)

That's got potential!  I don't collect dog tags or other uniform items, but I have seen that kind of marking on them, for units.

[Kyle68]

I gotcha! So just to make sure, the blade is real and the bottom of the tuska is like a Dog tag with the soldiers name? "Tatsuo Obayashi. Is that part of the sword real too or is it a fake? How common are these? any idea of value?

[Bruce Pennington]

Actually have never seen such a thing before!  Fakers tend to repeat what works, so it looks legit to me.

 

The nihonto guys would have to comment on the blade value.  From a WWII perspective, it's anybody's guess due to the uniqueness.  War swords in this kind of condition tend to run about $700-900 USD.  But the older blade and unique fitting could add if a buyer likes stuff like that.