Requesting Help Translating Kanji

coral99 · 16 Aug 2019

Hello,

I would like to request help translating the kanji on the tang from a Japanese sword. There are kanji on both sides of the tang. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Matt

Majestic · 16 Aug 2019

The writing on picture #6 is 於浪華囗囗囗 ← the last one may be 正 or 柾. It should be the smith's name, but its too obscure for me to make out. I was thinking maybe 村正 or even 古村正, but neither of these are viable candidates.

The other side is a dedication to the person who ordered the sword, who appears to be Kojima Masamichi (小島政道) but the rest of the dedication is a bit cryptic for me. There is a date of 元治元年之秋 (Autumn 1864).

coral99 · 16 Aug 2019

Thanks very much for your insight! This is very helpful and I appreciate your taking the time to reply. I will keep researching it and am grateful for any additional findings you might have.

Majestic · 16 Aug 2019

I forgot to say, 於浪華 (oite naniwa) means the sword was made "in Naniwa", which is another name for Ōsaka. So the smith will be an Ōsaka-based swordsmith.

Toritoribe · 18 Aug 2019

In addition to Majestic-san's reply.

大府保衣賜銀為之小島政道
大府保衣 would be the name of a person or class. It says he gave money for this (sword).
(Another possibility is that 保衣 is a miswriting of 褒, i.e., 大府褒賜銀為之, meaning "大府 gave money as a prize for this (sward)".)

元治元甲子之秋
The kanji after 元 are 甲子 Kinoe-ne, but the year is 1864, anyway.

I, too, think the kanji after 華 would be 古.

coral99 · 19 Aug 2019

Hello Toritoribe,

Thanks for the extra information and taking the time to weigh in. This is very helpful.

Would you know what the last characters are after 古 ?

Thanks for your continued help.

Toritoribe · 19 Aug 2019

Those are illegible to me, too. The last three characters seem like hantaigana rather than kanji to me. (It's uncommon in inscriptions of swords, though.)

Requesting Help Translating Kanji

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