a veteran's collection

[Peter Bleed]

Dear Friends,

Allow me to describe an adventure I had today. It was not a first for me, but I sadly suspect that it may be a “last.” I was visited this morning by a fellow who wanted some information about his father’s swords.

His Dad was with Merrill’s Marauders (!). He went in thru Burma and Kunming in 1942 and left from Taiwan in 1946. The swords he brought home were “up in the attic” since that time so I was the first person to look at them in detail in 65 years. Now, in the 60s and 70s groups of stuff like this were rather common, but there simply can’t be very many left now.

The group included a couple of nice koto katana – one 31” long – as well as a couple of ken in shirasaya (What were they doing in Shanghai or Taiwan?). There was a nice clean shin-gunto with a mumei Seki blade and a company grade tassel – a sword carried by some paper-pusher in Formosa, I suspect. And an oddly mounted “pilot’s sword” that I plan to show on the gunto page. Oh, . . and a couple of real low-end things including one of those strange daito that looks like a crude Chinese copy of a gunto. What ARE those things?

A couple of observations struck me as we studied these swords. First, this is how most Nippon-to came to the States. This was not a random group of swords. They were culled and sorted by a fellow who had a good eye and was making decisions about what he wanted to keep. This veteran made good decisions. He must have had access to clean swords and he liked unusual stuff. Two ken tanto. . in Taiwan!

Second, it was clear that swords take care of themselves pretty well. These blades were a bit dusty, but the blades cleaned up remarkably well. Most of them would be “shinsa ready” after 65 years in the attic. The nakago, on the other hand, came out pretty tough looking. Getting the tsukas off was a bit challenging. And when they came free, the tangs were really quite crusty, red, and dirty. I judged one koto uchi-katana to be mumei until a bit of rubbing revealed a niji-mei – how embarrassing. At first glance, that sword could have been a Shinto or Shin-shinto due to the red rust on the tang. On the other hand. one of the ken – dated Bunka ju ni, 1815- initially looked remarkably old - - until we dusted it off. Clearly the ‘age’ collectors expect on ‘old swords’ was built up over long periods of just sitting there in a tsuka. Compared to the length of time some Kamakura and Namboku-cho blades rested out in a kura or in a daimyo’s arsenal, the 65 years that these blades spend up in this veteran’s attic may not have been too remarkable.

Sword collecting sure is fun!

Peter

[John A Stuart]

Yes Peter there is a Santa Claus. That sure was one of those classic treasure finds. Nice!! John

[Surfson]

Great story Peter. I will share my recent once in a lifetime sword collector story. I recently bought an entire collection from a man whose father had traveled around the whole country as a motel buyer in the 60s and 70s. His son claims that he was the originator of the full page ad in the local newspaper along with setting up shop in a local hotel or motel. He was mostly interested in jewelry, coins etc., but did pick up militaria and developed a liking for Japanese swords and therefore hung on to all of them that he found. Although he apparently was not too knowledgeable about Japanese swords, he had a great eye and I was able to pick up over a dozen swords, half of which are really wonderful and completely worthy of sending to Japan for restorations. Cheers, Bob