Help ID a WWII Japanese Sword

FrankDL

FrankDL

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May 15, 2001
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I have a Japanese sword believed to be from WWII. The blade is 26" long. The scabbard is metal. I've taken the handle off and found Japanese characters on both sides of the blade. Can anyone tell me what I have and what it's value might be? I've attached some PICS.

Thanks in advance for any help.
:)

Frank-
 
I do not see any pics, do you want to try it again maybe? Is there a serial number on the blade?
 
Sorry, about the PICS. This is the second time I've tried to post pics without success. I'll try again.
 
These characters are below and inline with the above characters.
And the next post will be the final characters in the long line of characters.
 
Well that is interesting, the sword does not appear to be in typical shin gunto mounts and has kanji. Unfortunately kanji are easily added and I cannot read what they say anyhow. This is not the fault of the picture, I just cannot read kanji. :) If I could suggest you might want to post these same pictures over at the www.swordforum.com Japanese arts board and you might want to get ahold of Dr. Rich Stein who runs this site: http://japanesesword.homestead.com/index.html He may be able to help you out.
 
The sword is a typical shin-gunto, about 66-67cm blade length

The Mei reads " Kanetada" , "Showa 20 Feb."

The smith is not listed in any of my references, just like most of the shin-gunto smiths.

Joe Leung
 
I think I've missed something that is about the mounting.

Does it come with plain iron tsuba and that tsuba has a depression that matches that saya opening? If it is so, it is a mounting which commonly refered to as "marine mount"

I've seen 2 variations of this kind of mounting. One of them has the tsuka-ito painted and has rough urashi painted saya. The other one, like yours, has plain tsuka-ito and plain, light-brown painted metal saya. The former mounting seemed to be of better made and belonged to higher ranking officers. I've seen 2 groups of blade lengths in these mounts (62-63cm and 66-67cm) and they are believed to be the standard sword mounts for military police (Kem Pei Tai)

Joe Leung
 
Well it appears to be a 1944 regulation army officers shin gunto.They were used on into 1945 also. There also appears to be an acceptance stamp above the signature. It looks like the Kokura arsenal acceptance stamp, however I could be wrong as it is hard to read. I have seen some of the 1944 pattern with good quality traditionally made blades (gendaito), but usually they are in the other mounts that Mr.Leung mentioned with the roughened dark laquer saya. I hope this is some help.
P.S. looks like Kanetada to me too, but I don't have him listed either.
B.R. Tomberlin
 
Help me out here guys. Those mounts do not look like the standard "cherry blossom" mounts that I am used to seeing on shin gunto. Are these the marine mounts that someone else mentioned?
 
Triton,

These kind of mount is not Shin-gunto mounts which is very popular. It is what refered to as 44 marine mounts in Rich's site.

Joe
 
Thanks for all the information guys. I'll try to post some additional pics that show a more overall of the handle area.
Any ideas on its current value?

Again, thanks for any help-:)
 
I see, I went back and had a look at Rich's site and found the mounts. I had forgotten about them. As for a value it really depends. If it turns out to be a traditionally made blade you are potentially talking about a few thousand dollars. If it is machine made a few hundred.
 
Thanks again to all who looked and provided information. How would one tell if this is a traditionally made blade or a machine made blade? Can anyone tell from the pics? I've attached more for review.
 
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