Nice garage sale find with a cool ww2 story

[Jonas Ne]

I recently purchased this tanto at a garage sale. The seller is the son of a WWII medic and his father told him the story of how he obtained it. I took this with a grain of salt but nonetheless interesting. During an air attack on US ships a Japanese pilot was shot down and crashed onto the deck of US ship. The pilot was still alive when found with the tanto in his stomach. He later died of the injuries and the sellers dad took this home. It looked authentic (was covered in thick old oil) so i bought it for 100$ took it home and here it is cleaned up.

[ROKUJURO]

It seems it is one of the cheap TANTO that were made for the war. They are often called 'pilot TANTO' or 'SEPPUKU TANTO'. They look quite nice when in good polish as yours is, but the NAKAGO is very crude, compared with that of a carefully made TANTO of the SAMURAI era. 

Anyhow, a nice find and a good story!

There is probably no KOSHIRAE but a simple SHIRA SAYA?  

[Jonas Ne]

21 minutes ago, ROKUJURO said:

It seems it is one of the cheap TANTO that were made for the war. They are often called 'pilot TANTO' or 'SEPPUKU TANTO'. They look quite nice when in good polish as yours is, but the NAKAGO is very crude, compared with that of a carefully made TANTO of the SAMURAI era. 

Anyhow, a nice find and a good story!

There is probably no KOSHIRAE but a simple SHIRA SAYA?  

Yep, it came in Shira-saya with a wooden habaki attached to the shira-saya. As you said the nakago seems poorly shapen and the file marks also seem almost random (where they can be seen).

[Infinite_Wisdumb]

$100 is a steal, treasure it!

[John C]

3 hours ago, Jonas Ne said:

Yep, it came in Shira-saya with a wooden habaki

It's a decent find. The wooden habaki were common on these. Made for soldiers or sailors. 

 

John C.

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

If you can get the name of the Vet you could potentially check the veracity of the story from the ships records. 

[Nihonto Chicken]

If truly found with a downed Japanese pilot, it may have been the proverbial "kamikaze tanto" and mounted something like this, rosewood with bone fittings.

 

 

The theory was that Kamikaze pilots were supposed to perform ritual seppuku as they crashed their planes into US ships.  It would be amazing if any of them actually managed this feat, as there was a lot going on at the time. 

[Bruce Pennington]

Second time I have heard such a story.  Could be true considering the number of planes the Japanese sent after ships.  It is quite nice looking!

 

Be sure to avoid touching the blade with fingers.  The skin oils can make permanent stains in the steel.  I have a Type 95 NCO with permanent prints from some previous owner.

[Jonas Ne]

On 3/19/2024 at 8:24 AM, Bruce Pennington said:

Second time I have heard such a story.  Could be true considering the number of planes the Japanese sent after ships.  It is quite nice looking!

 

Be sure to avoid touching the blade with fingers.  The skin oils can make permanent stains in the steel.  I have a Type 95 NCO with permanent prints from some previous owner.

On the note of fingerprints etching stains into the steel. I suppose it would be hard to know, but has anyone ever found a nihonto with an ancient person's fingerprints on the blade? 

[ROKUJURO]

No, I don't think so. Probably the finger stains have been polished away in the meantime. But more likely that people in the past knew that touching a blade is not only bad for the steel but also an insult against its owner. There was more knowledge about handling blades correctly, and there was more respect, I believe.

[Scogg]

It would be a little interesting to take an old blade covered in finger marks, and see how many prints the world database recognizes. 
 

Although, unrecognized prints could simply be modern and undocumented, or pre 1970s. 
 

Id also think that finger print rust, if not removed by polish, would slowly spread/bleed over time obscuring the individual lines. Maybe someone with a better understanding of rust can prove this right or wrong. 

 

Fun to think about though! I’m pretty sure my inherited katana is covered in my grandfathers fingerprints.

Thanks for sharing your Tanto,

All the best,

-Sam 

 

 

Edited March 22, 2024 by GeorgeLuucas
Removed some redundancy

[John C]

In line with what Jean was saying, the way a blade was maintained would probably remove prints - i'm thinking specifically of wiping the blade down with uchiko powder.

 

John C. 

[Jonas Ne]

8 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

No, I don't think so. Probably the finger stains have been polished away in the meantime. But more likely that people in the past knew that touching a blade is not only bad for the steel but also an insult against its owner. There was more knowledge about handling blades correctly, and there was more respect, I believe.

During the appreciation of nihonto this is true. However there are many kenjutsu kata that practice touching the blade in some way with you hands. Maybe a samurai using one of these techniques died and a blade was scavenged?

[ROKUJURO]

Jonas,

of course we could imagine a scenario of that kind, but usually, the blades are cleaned after practice. TOGISHI also touch the blafdes they are working on, but without negative effects.

[Bazza]

I beieve TOGISHI use caustic soda to kill any acid, fingers or otherwise.

 

BaZZa.