Please help translate to English

My Great Uncle passed away and left me some of his WW II memorabilia. He was stationed in the pacific as a Marine. He brought a pistol and pistol case and I would love to understand what this says. If this is a name and belongs to a loved one, I would like to make contact and ship it to them.

These are the images

It does appear to be a name. @Majestic should be able to figure it out. However I wouldn't try to return it. I believe it's illegal to own this in Japan even if it's made inoperable. If it made it back to Japan it would likely be destroyed.

Thank you ! Do you think the family would want the empty case? I know I would.

risleykeith said:

Thank you ! Do you think the family would want the empty case? I know I would.

Click to expand...

Possibly. Or a museum might be able to accept it with the firearm.
First step is to see what it says and take it from there. It looks to me like the crossed out portion is a name as well. So probably it had two owners.

The middle part was the name of the original owner. It's been crossed out, and a new name written to the left of it. The right side looks like a rank

囗兵中尉 代藤忠良 Lt. SHIROFUJI Tadayoshi.


Not sure about the ones in red. The first one is a bit smudged, and the second one doesn't feel right.
The rank isn't so important because the "Lieutenant" part is clear enough. It's the family name that bugs me.
SHIROFUJI (using those characters) doesn't seem to be a plausible family name in Japan. It doesn't pop up in any searches. I'm not 100% confident in the first character. It looks like 代 but with some extra bits in the middle. It could possibly be 城 (which is coincidentally also pronounced "shiro"), but somehow the left side doesn't look right.

Looks like the name in the middle was the original owner, but that name has been crossed out with two vertical lines.
That name might have been UCHISAWA Katsuhide (内澤勝英) or OKASAWA Katsuhide (岡沢勝英). He may have been the lieutenant.

Anyway, those are my best guesses. And yes, even if you could find the person's descendants, the gun couldn't be imported into Japan. It would be impounded by customs, and would cause a serious headache for the family. And, I doubt the family would want the item anyway. If it were a photo book or a soldier's pay book it might have sentimental value, but a gun is not something that they would want.

On the other hand, if it is a working Nambu pistol, you might be able to sell it at a gun show here in the States.


You might try posting it on the Japanese Militaria section at Warrelilcs.com to see what they think.

Edit: I posted this just after you posted the two messages above. My gut feeling is that even the case would not be particularly welcome or interesting for them. You do see memorabilia such as flags and swords returned to Japanese families from time to time - so not all families feel the same. But a gun holster by itself I don't think it would have much sentimental attraction.

I didn't mention I also have the original sword as well

And Yes it is a working Nambu. The only issue the trigger guard is slightly dented like it was used to hit something

Could you post a photo of the sword?
If you know how to take the pommel off, I'd love to look at the tang to see if there is an inscription on it.

I could when I return from business travel. Not sure how to take it off. If you instructions please send. It's all
Metal, even the case. Dark green in color

OK. Maybe not so important to take the pommel off, then. Sometimes family heirlooms were retrofitted with military scabbards and fittings, so soldiers could take their family sword off to battle. But most of the time soldiers were provided with arsenal-made blades. Anyway, I'd love to see a photo of the blade itself, and of the pommel area (no need to remove it) when you are able.

Family heirloom swords date from the samurai era (pre Meiji-era), and occasionally there will be very nice, high-quality art swords inside the scabbard.
Arsenal made blades, if well-preserved, have value as war memorabilia, but aren't typically as high value as art/antique swords. But even nowadays well-kept militaria like Japanese swords, can be worth thousands. You may have already seen the sites below. There is a lot of good information in them.

Looks like this.

The only difference is a flat edge at top of case. Like the middle one

As promised. Here is the sword and some pictures

The Scabbard says PT on the bottom. It doesn't look like any number

Thanks for the photos. The number engraved on the side of the sword confirms it as an arsenal blade (as opposed to a family heirloom).
Looks authentic enough to me. Just keep it in good condition, give it a light oiling if you like (aka sewing-machine oil, nothing heavy or tacky, and you don't want to oil it so much that the oil drips and collects inside the scabbard). Don't be tempted to sharpen it, or to do any amateur restoration on it. It's fine as is.

I saw this the other day and was surprised.

When I receive swords from Japanese dealers, they're never oiled which puzzled me.