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Need a Japanese Naval Sword Translated

4 Oct 2014
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I am having trouble getting the pictures to load. If you are willing to help me out give me an email I can send them to. Thanks in advance.
 
I sent you an E-Mail for you to use. Feel free to send the pics to me and I'll try to upload them for you.

Uncle Frank
 
Took me a minute to figure transfering out.

Hope these help.
IMG_20140923_191132_616.jpgIMG_20140923_191313_644.jpgIMG_20140925_155032_063.jpgIMG_20140929_202409_890.jpgIMG_20140929_202421_495.jpg

OK , it only lets you do 5 pictures per post so I will do one more post with the sixth and last picture next.

Uncle Frank
 
One more picture.

If someone has Photoshop , you can use it to enhance these pictures a bit and maybe make out the Kanji better. Hope someone can make the writing out.

Uncle Frank

IMG_20140929_202501_837.jpg
 
???住丹(probably supposed to be 波)?秀(作?)

There are mistakes, e.g. a single stroke is divided into two strokes or a stroke is omitted, in some kanji, and many of them don't make sense. That would be a fake, what's more a poorly-made one, I'm afraid.
 
I think I see 実 in there, which I thought was a postwar simplification of 實....
 
Ah, yeah, the third kanji could be 実, or the one intended to be 実.

I'm reading a lot of Meiji and Taisho stuff recently. I always see that character as 實. Do you know if the current 実 existed before the postwar reforms? (Usage of many things varies widely between authors, so I never know if what I am seeing is standard usage or just personal preference).
 
I would have guessed the first two might be 濃州.

Naval sword is a red flag in itself. Decorative swords were mass-produced and so they didn't have signatures on them. Some people took their antique/heirloom swords and retro-fitted them so that they fit into the modern sword fittings, but if this were the case you would expect the signature to be more clear, and you would expect the rust/patina to be more uniform. So when you have a shonky signature, a funky rust pattern, and an vague appellation such as navy sword, or samurai sword, it tends to indicate something of questionable value.
 
Or, it could be (intended to be) 播州, if the fourth and fifth kanji are 丹波 or 丹後.

I'm reading a lot of Meiji and Taisho stuff recently. I always see that character as 實. Do you know if the current 実 existed before the postwar reforms? (Usage of many things varies widely between authors, so I never know if what I am seeing is standard usage or just personal preference).
實 was listed in the initial standardization plan of kanji in 1919.
国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション - 漢字整理案

However, the simplified form 実 was selected as the proper kanji in the first Jōyō kanji list in 1923.
国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション - 官報. 1923年05月12日

So, 実 would be relatively commonly used in Taishō period, I suppose.
 
Thanks very much. I've made most of my choices from pre-1923 material (with much also prior to 1919), so that would explain a lot.
 
First off I want to thank weveryone for being willing to help. I can personally verify that the sword is from at least WWII. It was brought to my grandfather during the war and has remained in his possession since. As to your concerns of it being a naval sword I can provide additional pictures of the fittings, scabbard, etc... If other info is needed such as blade length, hamon pics, etc... I can do that too. It is interesting to not that the hamon is different on both sides of the blade. One side is the classic wave style but the other is more irregular. I agree that it may not be an extremely old sword I would just like to know what it says.




I would have guessed the first two might be 窶抻ツ州.

Naval sword is a red flag in itself. Decorative swords were mass-produced and so they didn't have signatures on them. Some people took their antique/heirloom swords and retro-fitted them so that they fit into the modern sword fittings, but if this were the case you would expect the signature to be more clear, and you would expect the rust/patina to be more uniform. So when you have a shonky signature, a funky rust pattern, and an vague appellation such as navy sword, or samurai sword, it tends to indicate something of questionable value.
 
A picture of the full tang - from the end of it to the part where it becomes the sword blade, i.e. where it starts to have a sharp edge - might help. A picture of the tip of the sword would help. Any pictures of the hamon would help.

The fittings are not as interesting as the sword. Not to me, anyway, although the fittings do have their own admirers and hobbyists. Usually, in the antique world, the sword is the thing, and so it would be good to know whether your sword was an antique that was retro-fitted, or if it was something more contemporary. If you can send some pics of the sword we could maybe figure it out a bit better. There is also a website called Nihonto Message Board, which has a lot of experts in this field. You might try sending your pics to them as well.

I'd be keen to see more pics. Maybe the original problem was trying to upload too many pictures at one time. How about trying just one or two at a time?
 
I would have guessed the first two might be 濃州.

Naval sword is a red flag in itself. Decorative swords were mass-produced and so they didn't have signatures on them. Some people took their antique/heirloom swords and retro-fitted them so that they fit into the modern sword fittings, but if this were the case you would expect the signature to be more clear, and you would expect the rust/patina to be more uniform. So when you have a shonky signature, a funky rust pattern, and an vague appellation such as navy sword, or samurai sword, it tends to indicate something of questionable value.[/QUOTE


Got more pics up if you want to check them out.
 
Many thanks for posting the photos.

Gottmituns2013, I can say with a bit more confidence that the sword is not a hand-forged sword of any significance. The tip of the sword (the yokote/boshi area) has lost its definition, the sword is in dire need of a polish, and, I hate to be a downer, but both the signature and the hamon are suspicious. Toritoribe-san's assessment was right. Let me explain why I think it is questionable, and you can use that info to get more opinions if you like.

The signature contains a number of kanji-like characters that are disfigured by scratchings and rust. Only one of the characters stands out to me as a legible kanji; the character 「秀」hide near the bottom of the sword. Generally speaking, scratchings and rust over a signature usually mean that someone is trying to purposefully obscure the signature (presumably because it is a forgery or a botched attempt at forgery).

Your sword doesn't look like its been cropped, and the steel on the tang looks fairly new, so to me it looks like a contemporary sword (say, within the last 100 years) mass-produced for the military. The hamon looks like a chemically-induced coloring, rather than a feature of the forging process.

To bring your sword back into a decent, polished condition would cost thousands of dollars. It would be a good investment if you had a tokubetsu-hozon sword, or even a nice hozon sword. But for a questionable sword with a dodgy signature I think it would be a terrible gamble.

None of this means your sword has no value as an historical item. And only you can judge the sentimental value it has for you as an inheritance from your grandfather. In the world of antique swords, the sword in the picture is a fairly common thing. You can find them on yahoo and ebay for $1000-$2000.
 
Thanks for your assessment. I have one last option to read the writing. My cousin's mother in law is Japanese. She was born in occupied Manchuria. Unfortunately for me she lives in South Carolina. It will be a few months before I can get it to her to attempt to read. Do you know if any of the mass produced swords had a visible grain in the metal? I think I can see it in mine but it is faint. Can you translate the one symbol that you recognize? I was thinking that it may be a sort or dedication/charm someone put on the tang??? I have seen a few references to that happening. Also, do you have any idea what the average literacy rate was in Japan was around WW2? I was wondering if that could possibly account for the poor inscription. Thanks again.
 
Hello,

You also have the excellent option of sending the pics to the Nihonto Message Board, which I highly recommend.
There could very easily be visible grains in the metal of mass-produced swords. It wouldn't mean anything in your case. Have a look at these sites here for more info on military swords of the 20th-century.
Guntō - Wikipedia
About a military swords (Guntō)
The one symbol that is legible to me is 秀 hide, which means preeminence or excellence.
The inscription would typically include (in this order)
1. prefecture/han/region name,
2. city/local name
3, smith's personal name, and sometimes their rank or title (if any)

There are many other possibilities. Dedication would be rare. Any other invocation or charm would by extremely unusual. I don't know the literacy rate during WW2, but I would assume "high". Anyway, a smith would have certainly been educated and literate enough to carve his name into a sword. Any other inscription important enough to go on the sword would have been written clearly. Engraving a mei into a sword is a slow, deliberate process, so its very suspicious to have a mei with so many indiscernible scratchings on it.
I'm afraid there are too many things going against this sword for it to be a valuable art sword. It still has value as a piece of history.
 
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