Kamakura Type 97 Kai Gunto

[Michaelr]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share a recent purchase. I believe it is a Type 97 Kai Gunto, with a large anchor stamp without the circle which I believe is for the Kamakura arsenal. It also looks like it is dated December 1942. Please feel free to comment and I hope you enjoy.  MikeR

[Michaelr]

A couple more pictures

[Bruce Pennington]

Yes Michael, Type 97 kaigunto, and a quite gorgeous one at that.  Quite unusual to have an Army company grade tassel.  The wear & tear on it seems to match the wear on the kaigunto, but there's no way to know if it's original or added later.

 

The anchor is the Navy inspector for the Tenshozan forge that made blades for the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal.  The mei says "Tenshozan Tanrenjo Saku" or Tenshozan Forging Workshop made.  The were in Kamakura, as I understand it.

 

Intriguing use of the modified Roman numerals on the nakago jiri.  If you hadn't posted photos of the seppa, I would never have guessed the number they had tried to depict.  "\" was "5", so "\\" could be "10" or "55", but the "=" or "2" after could be "552" or "102"; but from the seppa we can see they meant "20" and the 4 hash marks at the end are the 4 of 24.  Much more complicated than it needed to be.

 

Nice custom fittings.

[Michaelr]

Thank you Bruce. Are blades stamped with the anchor from the Tenshozan Forge more common or less common than other anchor stamped blades? With a 42 date that seems early on.   MikeR

[Bruce Pennington]

The tenshozan blades are less common.  I have 48 Toyokawa anchor-stamped blades on file and only 27 Tenshozan.  It would make sense as I'm sure Toyokawa Naval Arsenal had more shops/forges making blades for them than just Tenshozan.

 

'42-'43 were the prime years for this stamp.  I have a single blade with it in each year of 1939 - 1941, but several blades in the '42-'43 years.   I also have several without dates, and they could be in the '44-'45 range, but there's no way to know.

[mecox]

More info:  

 

[Michaelr]

Bruce and Mal, thank you very much for the information and your time.    MikeR

[Richt zamora]

Buenos días. ¿Alguien puede ayudarme? Encontré uno muy parecido al tuyo, pero con marcas diferentes. ¿Alguien podría contarme algo sobre él y cuánto podría valer? Ya que no lo conservaré, lo venderé.

[Trenchnut]

Hi Ricky, you may consider Deeple as translater.

 

“Good morning. Can anyone help me? I found one very similar to yours, but with different markings. Could anyone tell me anything about it and how much it might be worth? Since I won't be keeping it, I'll sell it.“

www.deeple.com

Edited October 26 by Trenchnut

[Bruce Pennington]

Ricky,

You have what was originally a very nice Japanese Naval officer's sword, or kaigunto, with upgraded stingray skin covered saya (scabbard).  The signature is "Tenshozan made" a shortened version of the normal "Tenshozan Tanrenjo made" or Tenshozan Forging Workshop.  The blade is stainless steel, and the anchor stamp is of the Navy's Tenshozan inspector.  I assume there is no date on the other side?  I only have one other blade with this shortened mei.

 

The hash marks match the stamped numbers 223.  Unusual method of writing it, though, as they actually say "twenty two  three".  Usually you will see "two two three" in the hash marks.  Nothing special, just interesting.

 

I'm not sure about the small stamp at the end.  It could be "11" or the Japanese 2 "=", or a square.  Hard to say.