Gerry Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 Came across a gunto for sale with this signature for the Tokyo 1st Army, with a star stamp. Has anyone seen a similar star stamped tang before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Pennington Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 @Gerry Thanks for the photo! Can we get a link so I can download more photos, like the date side and some overall shots? Sounds like you are familiar with the Type 95 stamps. This one is different. It is the Army's stamp indicating that the steel was provided to the smith by the Army, under the RJT system, and so it's tamahagane and the blade is gendaito. You can read some about the RJT program on this thread: And some about the star stamp in my Stamps of the Japanese Sword article free download. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Pennington Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 Looks like it's one of those unlisted RJT smiths UPDATE: Sesko has no "Nobutoshi" listed, but he does have a Nobutake, with these kanji, and Nobutake is listed on the RJT list. I think the Japaneseswordindex has mislabled this smith and it's actually Nobutake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted July 30 Author Report Share Posted July 30 On 7/9/2024 at 6:06 AM, atm said: Hi Bruce, The blade isn't in good shape, and thanks for the interesting link to more information about the RJTs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted July 30 Author Report Share Posted July 30 More photos for you. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted July 30 Author Report Share Posted July 30 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Pennington Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 Excellent Gerry! Thanks! Note my correction to my first post. I believe the smith is Nobutake, not Nobutoshi. We now have 3 of his numbered blades - 205, 218, and 283 - star stamped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Pennington Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 deleted Note: I had mistakenly filed the JSI oshigata, labeled Nobutoshi, as a Slough reference, and asked Steve for his opinion. I deleted that original post when I realized the photo came from JSI not Slough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveM Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 "Take" is not a very intuitive reading for the 2nd kanji of the name, whereas "toshi" is a much more common reading. In the absence of any other information, I think most people would assume Nobutoshi is the likely and probable reading. So, its just a very understandable error on the part of Slough. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Pennington Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 Thanks Steve, I've amended my post above. Slough has no reference to Nobutoshi or Nobutake. I had mislabeled a file of mine from the JSI. Sorry for the mix up, but your answer is still good the see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owazamono Posted July 30 Report Share Posted July 30 35 minutes ago, Bruce Pennington said: Slough has no reference to Nobutoshi or Nobutake. Slough does have a reference to Nobutake, though not obvious. This is a signature used by Yoshihara Kuniie. Full signature is: Tokyo Dai Ichi Rikugun Zoheisho Nobutake. Here are a couple more examples: here and here 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted July 30 Author Report Share Posted July 30 Matt, Thanks for sharing the post of the discussion with Chris Bowen, and it was very informative. It's a little unusual that this particular Nobutake blade seems to have a suguha hamon, which is uncharacteristic for Kuniie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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