New Gunto with old blade

[Brian]

As per the post here: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/48912-mission-impossible/ I was lucky enough to pick up a shin gunto with an older blade yesterday. To find this in SA is quite a find.
I have started the gentle cleaning, but thought I would share it here.
Not pictured is the nice silver foiled habaki. Tsuka needs a rewrap, but that is fairly common.
It has a plethora of seppa, and I'm pleased to see that everything including the locking catch and tsuba have matching assembly numbers of 29. I haven't wiped the seppa etc down yet, I'll be doing that gently to make them a little less dirty.
Also, I'm very happy to have my first Gunto with a mon. Yay!
Looks to be silver, and I cannot make out anything. My guess is it was defaced on surrender. But maybe there is a mon under there. Don't want to clean it though.

Also, although the saya has some finish loss and bumps/dents, I am surprised to see what appears to be brass under the outer layer. This is apparent in quite a few places. Is this standard?

Quality of the fittings looks decent. Condition isn't great, but a new find in South Africa really has me glowing. At the Koto/Shinto blade posted in the other thread makes this a real bonus.
I'll put it all together this weekend and take better pics of the whole thing.

Thanks all.

 

[GeorgeLuucas]

Thanks for sharing Brian, and congratulations! 

I've always really liked older blades in Gunto fittings and I collected them for a little bit. This one looks like a great find.

I'd be curious to see better photos of that Sarute. It looks better-than-average to my untrained eye. 

Very cool! It always feels good to rescue a sword from the wild.
Cheers,
-Sam 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Brian,

Your excitement and joy just made my day!  I'm still smiling as I write! Ha! Love it!

 

We'll have to hear from John, @PNSSHOGUN, on the brass saya.  I checked Dawson - steel and aluminum; and Fuller - steel and alloy; but don't see brass.  It's been my experience that the gunto with old blades and 8 seppa were custom orders.  So, being custom, it wouldn't surprise me to see what you have there.  

 

Is it the photo, or that blade pretty long?

[PNSSHOGUN]

Nice find, the Mon looks like Maru ni Ken-Katabami - wood sorrel with Ken. Can't say I've heard of brass on a Saya before, but there's a first for everything.

[Brian]

I suppose it could be aluminium with a flash coating over it, but sure looks like brass to me. I'll investigate more when I get home tonight.
Thanks for the comments all.

[Michaelr]

Hello Brian and congratulations. It’s nice to hear someone this excited about a new find. You kind of beat me to it but from my end it looks like possibly an aluminum Saya that have had the spots covered with cosmoline. This is a vers sticky, grease that over the years dries and often turns a yellow color. Often even when removed it leaves a stain. Way back in the day I used to find a lot of WW2 items stored in this type of grease. Thank you for sharing it looks like a real winner 
 MikeR

[The Blacksmith]

Nice find, well done sir! 

 

As it is, the mon looks sort of Tokugawa(ish) to me.

[David Flynn]

Brian, do you have any more photos of the blade?

[Brian]

I'll take some this weekend. No lighting rig, so it's hard to capture much. But will play a bit and see what I can capture. What's clear in certain light is that the polish was very well done, clear hamon and hadori well done. But cameras just refuse to capture what I can see with my eyes. Must be a software bug

[Matsunoki]

I’m no photographer and don’t want to teach granny to suck eggs but just using my humble iPhone and iPad I’ve had some considerable success so I will try to explain.

I think one mistake we make is to position the sword so that TO OUR EYES it looks perfect, the hamon shows through the Hadori, nioiguchi shows, even jinie etc. We point what ever camera we are using and click. But the image is nothing like what we could see. For the camera to capture what we see it has to be EXACTLY from where our eye is looking at the blade from the same angle, not a millimetre out. As we know you only have to tilt a blade fractionally and the lighting changes and the details all disappear.

A method I have used is to get the sword roughly in a suitable light/position (daylight is sometimes good) where the light reflections pick up and highlight the relevant detail. Then do not look at the sword, instead look at the actual image appearing on the camera screen. Then manoeuvre the blade (helps if someone else can help do that) until what you are trying to capture appears on the camera screen as opposed to in your direct eyesight….then click….several times.

Yea that sounds obvious I know but if a talentless erk like me can get some great images just using something basic then…..

Dunno if that makes any sense whatsoever.

[George KN]

Absolutely amazing, this would my a dream blade! Matching assembly numbers so you know it hasn't been tampered with, Mon so you know it was used by someone important, all the history and context of being a historic samurai blade, whilst also having been fitted for war once again only a few generations ago. 

 

Not to mention it's also got quite an active hamon, which I do like, and you bought it at a great price - definitely a great sword to study and treasure