Inherited sword, educated opinions welcome.

eyeeatingfish

eyeeatingfish

Joined
Dec 9, 2003
Messages
4,807
I received this sword last week after my grandmother passed away, my uncle found it in the garage and gave it to me knowing I am into blades. It was wrapped in a cotton cloth and was probably stashed away for a long time. It is definitely not new but I do not know how old. My grandmother is japanese, born in America but her mother was from japan. I don't think that either my grandmother or my grandfather were the first born in the family so I kind of doubt that it is some family sword. I had asked earlier if some sword was passed down but my grandmother didn't know of any and my dad and uncle did not either. My uncle speculated that one of his uncles might have gotten it from Japan during or after the war. Not sure if the uncle was in the military or not.

I took a number of photos to show detail and I will hope some of it helps. It is not very ornate and some of the parts don't seem as well finished as one might expect from a nice japanese sword but I am no expert. I am kind of thinking maybe this was a mass produced war sword or inexpensive sword. I just hope it is not some tourist

sword2f.jpg


katana1e.jpg

Detail of the handle. The gold thing under the handle wrapping does not feel like metal. The temperature feels different but not sure if plastic or wood or what.

sword5.jpg

Tip detail. You can see the scabbard is wood and is chipping.

sword4i.jpg

End detail. The material under the wrapping appears to be authentic (not that I am an expert or anything) It is very rough and is uneven so I am thinking organic material not a perfect pattern created material.

sword6.jpg

Handle parts. The silver rings are very light, maybe aluminum?

sword3i.jpg

Detail showing blade. You can see the hamon is wavy and not some perfect pattern. I understand this means it is likely a real hamon.

sword7pf.jpg

sword8.jpg


Two pictures showing the Kanji on the handles. My kanji is not that great, I think i recognize the bottom two. I will ask my wife and post what she says a little later.

Thanks for any input. Any questions to help figure this one out I will try my best.
 
1st thing...DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CLEAN, BUFF,POLISH OR SHARPEN IT. You will destroy and potential value it may have.

2nd, go here and ask for a translation- the have a subforum for just that

http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/

3rd, come back and tell us what you learned :)
 
If you are lucky, you could have a very old blade which was adapted to wartime useage. Let's hope! As the others have said though, do not sand, or touch any type of abrasive to the blade or tang.
 
I know BARLEY jack about swords ..... But what i do know is this....Listen to what they are saying...... Don't even put any oil on the sword! ..... Really why would you ? It has been sitting for years without oil what is another week, month or year going to hurt?? If you do anything to it and REMOVE the patina... In any way you ..... NOT "maybe".... You WILL devalue it. Take your time ..do your homework. Talk to the experts and for gods sake let us know what you found out....BTW ..... Sometimes it turns out that the blade is an old blade but not a blade that was handed down generations .... But that round Guard you have removed to read the blade ... That sometimes is something that was handed down from generation to generation and put n the new sword.

Good luck sir
 
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The above post was from me ..... I couldn't log in to my account so i had to reset the password and the email was not comming through....and I wanted to post B4 you oiled it ...... Again good luck sir
 
Judging from everyones posts there must be a fair number of people who go and ruin antique swords by sanding, polishing etc. Luckily I had read just enough to know not to do this, and kind of assumed that from advice not to try and clean coins too.
I certainly thank everyone for their concern. My wife couldn't read the kanji, so when her dad is on skype I am going to send him the picture. (wife is from japan)
 
To start with I am not an expert. The guys over on Nihoto Message Board do qualify as experts. What I can tell you with confidence is:
1. The tsuka (handle) looks to be from a Naval sword. The dark wrap over the black rayskin is typical of the Naval Swords
2. The shape of the kissaki (tip of the sword) and the tang made it a good bet that this is a Japanese made blade versus a Chinese fake.
3. The reddish brown color of the rust on the tang may indicate that this is a moderatley old blade (1800's) as opposed to a really old blade (1400's) or a war time blade which would typicallly not have that much rust on the tang.
So the good news is that this has potential to be a true Nihonto blade. If so that would mean it was a traditionally made Japanese blade. DEFINITELY follow the good advice you've gotten so far and don't mess with it. The fact that you have it in a stable conditioned environment will keep it safe for now.
The folks over at NMB will ask for the following pictures in order to give you a reasonable estimate on the age and the smith.
1. Full length shot of the blade without the handle or scabbard.
2. Full length shot of both sides of the tang from the copper collar to the end of the tang.
3. The deatil shot you have of the kissaki will cover that area.
4. One or two broad detail shots of the main body od the blade to get a feel for the Hamon or temperline.
Go ahead and get these shots and post it over there if you would like a solid answer.
Good Luck,
Kevin
 
The sword is certainly authentic Japanese.
The kanji read - Fuji Wara Kane Naga Saku, or Fujiwara Kanenaga Saku. Fujiwara is an old clan name and is used as an honourary title, Kanenaga is the smiths name and Saku means 'made this'.
Kanenaga was a famous smith in WW2 and was known for his work with anti rust steel.
http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_121.htm

Looking at your sword, it appears there are two shades of patina on the nakago, the border between the two just above the first kanji. This suggests some alteration has been done, either the blade has been shortened by moving the machi(junction where tang meets blade) further up the sword(machi-okuri) or the original patina and signature has been filed off.
Comparing your signature with the one in the link above, they do not seem to be done by the same hand.
It is possible that your sword is gimei, which means fake signature. The Japanese added famous signatures to lesser quality swords for centuries.

The fittings are similar to Kai Gunto or naval sword.
http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/military.htm scroll down to bottom of page for Kai gunto.
Yours has some variations but it's probably impossible to account for why.

So it's a genuine Japanese blade with a possibly dubious signature.
Your best bet now would be to get it to one of the sword shows in the States and have an expert check it out, preferably one who specialises in Gendaito.
Chris Bowen over on the NMB would be the man to contact.

Best of luck.
 
Wow, thanks Lee. My membership is pending at the nihonto message board so I will post pictures there as soon as I get accepted.

Do you have any ideas what it may be worth, a range of values perhaps? I do not plan on selling it though, it will be oiled and put in the gun safe. Unless it is somehow of very little value I plan to keep it and pass it down. I will have to try and dig more as to how my family came into possession. I think that if I can gather something about the story it will be worth more sentimentally. However if it is just something an american soldier grabbed out of some house or something then I suppose it may have a dollar value but not much of a meaning. I guess I am hoping that it is of some significance.

I do see what you mean by the signatures not looking the same though.
 
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Thanks dudley. I put the sword back together already so I will have to take it apart for more pictures. I can try to take more detailed close ups next time. Getting the pin out was not too hard but sliding the handle off and then back on took a bit of tapping. I hope I am not damaging anything.

I see what you guys mean by the two different sets of grind patterns though. Hopefully it is just a stamp removal and not a modification of the sword itself.
 
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