Type 95 Japanese NCO Sword Surrender Tags Translation

[Asterperious]

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased this sword and wanted to see if any information could be gathered from the tags. Sorry in advance if the kanji is upside down!

Thanks!

[GHP]

Unfortunately, that is not a surrender tag. It is good-luck charm from Narita-san temple ... near Narita Airport. The reverse has a few "bonji" sanscrit characters that I cannot read.


成田山
Narita-San


Too bad the family name was worn away from the scabbard! The name ends with

本

"~moto" and could have been any of a number of surnames. Here are just a few:


秋本 Akimoto
川本 Kawamoto

河本 Kawamoto [yes, same sound, different "river"]
坂本 Sakamoto
etc.


-- Guy

[Asterperious]

Thanks for all the help Guy!! Here is what may be a better photo if it helps.

[GHP]

Thanks for all the help Guy!! Here is what may be a better photo if it helps.

Thanks, but it is still 100% rubbed out. But at least you have half of the surname!!! (^_______^)


-- Guy

[BruceP]

Don't know how much you know about your gunto. I'ts a Type 95 NCO sword. If you post good pics of the fuchi stamps just above the handguard (tsuba) I can tell you who made the sword and for which arsenal.

You can read about them here: http://ohmura-study.net/957.html

[Asterperious]

Thanks Bruce, I'll post some more pics tonight!

[Asterperious]

Here are some more pics

[BruceP]

Thanks Aster!
From left to right:
Iijiman Token Sword contractor
Tokyo Arsenal inspector stamp
Kokura Arsenal stamp

The forth stamp in the center underneath the Tokyo inspector stamp is the "Jin" inspector stamp of the Jinsen Arsenal of Korea. I would speculate that this blade might have been presented to the Jinsen Arsenal as an example of how these blades are to look. Jinsen produced swords in the latter half of the war.

The stacked cannon ball Kokura stamp stopped being used around 1940 when the arsenal no longer administered oversight of all the other arsenals. So, while we cannot put an exact date to this blade, it was made no later than 1940. Shamsy or Stegel might be able to narrow that down more for you.

I have personally never seen a Type 95 with this stamp combination, so I'd say this is a pretty rare gunto.

You can read more about these here: http://ohmura-study.net/957.html

[Asterperious]

Thanks for the info! I didn't realize how many variations existed in the arsenal markings. So in theory, would it have been presented to Jinsen and then subsequently issued?

[STEGEL]

Hi Aster,
Could you post a picture of the guard, so it is clearly visible from both sides.
I believe that it will have an extra hole on the opposite side to where the collar stamps are. This would make it a 'transitional' tsuba, that is it could be used with the top locking mechanism OR a side locking mechanism.

Here's a post on another forum, which you may find interesting:
http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/japane...-tsuba-754081/

[Asterperious]

Here are the pics of the guard:

[STEGEL]

Thanks for the pics Aster!

As i was saying, in the bottom photo you can see the extra hole in the guard, 90 degrees or quarter turn away from the hole in which the locking mechanism goes through.
So far every sword i've seen that has the Jinsen acceptance stamp has this particular style of guard. I call it the 'transitional' guard or tsuba, as you can envision the later side locking mechanism fitting through there. This type of guard isn't found on any of the other steel guarded swords which don't have the Jinsen Stamp.
When the Jinsen Arsenal began to produce type 95 NCO's, all were 'side-lock' variants, and as expected, non had holes to accommodate the top locking set-up.

Your sword was one that was sent to Jinsen, i believe as a sample from Kokura (and later Tokyo 1st) Arsenals, and hence the Jinsen acceptance stamp. It is unique and not very common.

[Asterperious]

Thanks for all the info Stegel! Definitely interesting to see the history behind all these variants that exist.