Arsenal Stamps.

[Johncstroud]

Hey Bruce the button is a loupe it makes it easier to see the details.

 

 

John, I have a stainless kaigunto with the toyokawa stamp too. What I haven't seen is a gunto with the Tenshozan arsenal stamp - anyone?
Ok, you got me with the button!!! What is that?

[Wouter]

Hi Bruce,

 

Thank you for the input. It might. I was wondering why you would think of a cherry blossom? Have you seen a similar stamp elsewhere?

At first I really thought it was rust, or damage. But, having seen the exact same 'thing' on another blade from Kanetomo (unfortunately I didn't save the picture) and on the exact same location (mune between 2 inspection stamps) and from the same year (Showa 17) I just can't accept it to be mere coincidence...

 

I'll keep looking...

 

Wouter

 

Souter, any chance that tiny character might represent a cherry blossom (5 leaves)?

.

[Bruce Pennington]

Wouter, sorry, no. I had just been studying the naval dirks, loaded with them when I saw your post. I'ts more likely a star.

[Johncstroud]

Hey Bruce the button is a loupe it makes it easier to see the details.

hey bruce I found a tenshozan tanrenjo for you.

[Bruce Pennington]

Thanks John! Here's a couple of Incheon Army Arsenal Pyonyang Factory "He" stamps, thanks to Matt (msam74) and "silverfox48" at Gunboards. Both are from late-war Type 95 gunto:

[SwordGuyJoe]

Bruce,

Are you sure those swords are legit? I'm not on gunboards otherwise, I'd look for myself.

[Stephen]

I have the same doubt

[Bruce Pennington]

Here's the discussion. http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?567201-Last-of-the-Late-War-NCO-Swords-with-a-serial-number You got me, though, I was so excited to see the Incheon stamp, I failed to look into the authinticity of the blades. With the sparse pics initially, one has very fresh ito and an officer tassel (which F & G, or Dawson, speculates means the ones with ito might have been made for officers), a seemingly brass tsuba, and a habaki that doesn't fit precisely. The other one looks normal, and has a "patent pending" ishizuki, though the number stamping looks poor. Concerning both, it is well known across the board that these late-war gunto were poorly made.

 

I've asked them both about it and will update when able.

[SwordGuyJoe]

Someone would have to talk me back off the ledge, but I'd say fake. That said, these late war piece together swords always challenge me, so who knows?

[Bruce Pennington]

After looking over the pics of both gunto, I'm coming down on the side of "legit." Here's a link to the thread with discussion and pics, if anyone wants to investigate: http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?567201-Last-of-the-Late-War-NCO-Swords-with-a-serial-number

[SwordGuyJoe]

Yeah. Could be.

[Shamsy]

100% genuine and known stamping. The late war Korean arsenal blades all have that large and shallow stamping (where they actually have the stamps). The over strike on the 3 is typical to. The 'tick' is the He stamp, the circle with two horizontal lines denotes a second class arms stamp and was also used on bayonets late in the war.

 

I expect condition of these swords is good because these swords were made too late for most to reach the field. They are precisely made and standardized, crude by Japanese standard but certainly not jeep spring swords. They are too old and rare to be fakes or put together (remembering these were not even valuable 30 years back) but common enough to be a distinct pattern.

 

Hope that helps guys!

[mauser99]

that was my comment there. All I have seen are in the 300,000 range and have a larger font than the Japanese made blades and those are in the low 200k range.  The one example with the cloth wrapped grip had the officers tassel and was for sale on ebay and realized 1850.00

The other wasn't for sale just shown as an example and was a wood gripped version. 

[SwordGuyJoe]

Thanks for putting me straight guys - honestly.

[Stephen]

     

[Bruce Pennington]

Haven't seen that stamp before, Stephen! Is that off a shrine sword?!

[Jr1212]

Just want to see if anyone can help me figure out what all my grandfathers sword says and what the markings say on it and what they mean. Trying to figure out how to post pictures now

[Jr1212]

Here are the photos I took of the tang if more detail is needed please let me know

[Stephen]

Jr

 

post pix here

http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/15-translation-assistance/

 

also please sign with your name per forum rules 

[Bruce Pennington]

James, Stephen is correct, this thread is huge and about the "stamps" or individual marks that mean things other than the swordsmith and date. Yours has a "Sho" or Showa stamp, closest to the handle, shaped like a flower with a symbol inside. It was used, according to Fuller & Gregory, from 1926-1941 on blades made for war using non-traditional methods or steels other than tamahagane.

[Bruce Pennington]

An interesting update on some of the history of the Showa stamp, with a tad bit on anchor stamps from Nick Komiya on the Warrelics forum:

"As to the origins for the mark, I understood that there were many cases of such mass produced blades snapping in the freezing cold weather of Manchuria. So the people in Seki decided to do voluntary impact testing on their products to ensure quality on blades for use by the military. They stamped blades that passed this test initially with the Kanji for Seki 関, signifying the guild. But later, one of the army arsenal factories happened to adopt the same kanji for marking, so the Seki people deferred and changed their impact test mark to the 昭 in cherry blossom mark for army orders and an anchor mark for navy orders. Anyway, that was what I took out from other sites."

[SwordGuyJoe]

References? I have read about when they started this program and it had nothing to do with testing for the cold. I did read an article translated from Japanese about testing blades in extreme conditions that's somewhere on the board. Perhaps Nick is mashing the two together, but without a reference, I'd find this difficult to believe.

[Bruce Pennington]

Joe,

Nick was quoting a Japanese polisher from a Japanese site. I didn't paste his entire discussion, and the previous paragraph discussed the non-traditional forging issue.

 

What I found very interesting was the timeline - Seki-area smiths using Seki stamps on showato until "an arsenal" (Nagoya?) starts using the Seki too, so the smiths turned to using the Showa stamp. I have recently seen a 1944 Seki-smithed blade with a Nagoya stamp, dated Jan '44.

 

I'm trying to get my head around the inspectors. I wonder if an inspector, say for Nagoya Arsenal, carried more than one stamp, say a Seki, a Nagoya, and a Showa? Or were there various levels of inspectors, some at Arsenal level, some at a Defense Ministry level (showa and star stamp) that worked all the arsenals?

 

My questions came from reading one of Ohmura-san's pages where he shows a Showa stamp and the label underneath says "Department of Interior, ministry of ordinance stamp".

 

Link to Warrelics discussion with Nick: http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/Japanese-militaria/showa-dept-interior-stamp-662590/

 

Link to Ohmura page: http://ohmura-study.net/211.html

[EdWolf]

This markings are found on the nakago of my navy sword. There is a naval mark near to the habaki, an unreadible label and some painted markings. 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Ed, the Anchor is the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal, the painted marks are for factory assembly, but the paper sticker is still a mystery. I have one that is just as unreadable, and have never seen one that is. Thanks for the pic!

[EdWolf]

Bruce, thanks for the information!

[IJASWORDS]

I have searched the posts trying not to waste time asking, but couldn't find an answer. I have a number of KAI GUNTO that have two SEPPA stamps, one is the anchor stamp, the one that I need an answer on, is what looks like a TEC stamp. Would any one have any idea what this is? Neil.

[Wouter]

Hi Bruce,

 

Thank you for the input. It might. I was wondering why you would think of a cherry blossom? Have you seen a similar stamp elsewhere?

At first I really thought it was rust, or damage. But, having seen the exact same 'thing' on another blade from Kanetomo (unfortunately I didn't save the picture) and on the exact same location (mune between 2 inspection stamps) and from the same year (Showa 17) I just can't accept it to be mere coincidence...

 

I'll keep looking...

 

Wouter

 

.

Hi all,

 

After endlessly browsing through the net, I finally found an example of the little marking I found on the mune, on a different blade.

 

Of all places, I found it in this topic.

 

I am sorry, I didn't know how to 'quote inside a quote', so I hope this will lead you to the correct post: zentsuji2, on 04 Mar 2014 - 10:35 AM, said:

and the Google link: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/5999-arsenal-stamps/page-8 

 

The small mark/stamp(?) is exactly the same, so there is definitely something there. However, it is not in the same spot on the mune, but between the arsenal stamps. Also the smiths are different: Kanetome vs Kanemoto. And, mine isn't star stamped, but a good candidate to be gendaito.

 

It would be interesting to know the date of Ian's blade...

 

Looking forward to your input,

 

Best regards,

 

Wouter

[Bruce Pennington]

Wouter,

I PM's Ian to see if he can repost a better pic of his mune with similar stamps.

[Bruce Pennington]

I have searched the posts trying not to waste time asking, but couldn't find an answer. I have a number of KAI GUNTO that have two SEPPA stamps, one is the anchor stamp, the one that I need an answer on, is what looks like a TEC stamp. Would any one have any idea what this is? Neil.

I've seen that TEC mark before, but my reference books are on loan at my brother's house! Does anyone have a Fuller & Gregory (or was it Dawson's) to have a look at this?