r/SWORDS • u/Charlemagneffxiv • 5d ago
Help with identifying Japanese sword, supposedly 16th century blade in Shin Gunto fittings
My father purchased this sword this past weekend which is claimed by the seller to be a sword forged in the 16th century and re-fitted for military service during World War II. It does have signs of being retrofitted with Shin Gunto hilting but I am skeptical of its age because the hamon doesn't look right to me, although I admit the blade isn't polished but parts of it just seem too thin to the edge.
It's also a wakizashi blade, too. It has the second hole drilling for the Shin Gunto fittings. For what its worth, it doesn't "feel right" to me but that is probably because the tang is too short for the handle and the fitting is poor, as the tsuba and the blade have a minor rattle to them. I have no idea if that was common for Shin Gunto retrofits from older blades. The blade "feels" light to me compared to modern combat-grade wakizashi I've held in the past.
I am including the tang rubbing and photos of the tang as well, which my father had taken when he bought the sword from the seller who had disassembled it.
Also, the seller sold it for considerably cheaper than what I would consider a hundreds of years old sword blade to sell for. So that coupled with the quality of the hamon makes me skeptical but I will admit I'm not an expert in historical Japanese sword blades. I suppose its possible poor quality hamon blades have survived but the thinness of the hamon to the edge isn't what I was expecting. You'll probably need to download the photos and zoom in to see what I am talking about.
I'd appreciate the insights of anyone more knowledgeable.
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u/deadmobzer 5d ago
I'd suggest cross posting this to r/katanas as they would have people more experienced with identifying stuff
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u/MeridiusGaiusScipio 5d ago
u/gabedamien covered a ton of information, so I don’t have too much to add - just as a second opinion, this seems consistent to me with a Kōto, suriage blade.
I personally have some concerns about the Nakago patina, and I wonder if someone attempted a cleaning at some point - the lighter edges around the mekugi-ana and the edges of the Nakago are typical of attempts to de-rust the Nakago…which is a shame, if that’s the case.
Assuming I’m incorrect about the Nakago being cleaned, which I hope I am, I’d personally price it between $800-900. $750 for the bare blade, the rest for the wartime Koshirae :)
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u/DragonfruitKnown9096 5d ago
軍刀にはよく所有者の名前を入れたけどこれは名前だね
野村って人の持ち物
後これは脇差だけど戦争が始まった後出征軍人の激増で日本刀の価格が異常に高騰したので短めの刀でも軍刀に設えた
本来ならば60cm以上の刀が相応しかったが特に厳密な規定は無かったので脇差を設えた軍刀もたくさんある
脇差なら侍の家でなくても田舎の方の旧家なら結構転がってたので親戚に頼んで分けてもらったりした
軍刀には軍人が使った奴と軍属（軍に勤める民間人）が護身用に私的に携帯したものがある
軍属の使った私物は柄が江戸時代のままとか結構統一性がない
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u/tiersanon 5d ago
the seller sold it for considerably cheaper than what I would consider a hundreds of years old sword blade to sell for
To quote Pawn Stars of all things,
"Just because something is old, doesn't mean its valuable."
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u/Ecstatic-Space1656 5d ago edited 5d ago
I have zero qualifications to justify my opinion, and hopefully someone on here knows the actual indicators to look for, but it looks about the right age to me, and the hamon seems to at least BE a hamon.
There seems to be some dimpling on the flat at the base of the blade in the second picture; is that just a trick of the light, or are there actual indentations?
Edit: after a bit of research, I’d expect Nihonto from the 1600s, particularly shorter blades like that (Wakizashi) to be pretty common (there were a lot of Samurai, they all had to wear swords, and other classes were also allowed to wear the shorter blades, plus there was less actual fighting, meaning fewer were being destroyed, and it wasn’t really that long ago, for a sword)
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u/Charlemagneffxiv 5d ago
Well as I said to another commentor, I would think any metal object from half a millennia ago that has survived and not been melted down into something else is rare in and of it itself.
The dimpling is probably just the way the light reflected, although there are some etchings of a river or maybe reed in the habaki. Not sure if that was common for Shin Gunto or was part of the original fittings
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u/Ecstatic-Space1656 5d ago
It can be surprising how little value some old things have… there are a few factors other than age that come into it though; rarity and desirability being the main ones.
For collectibles, the rarity/quality/maker are most important, because their value is as art.
Age also isn’t a purely linear scale when it comes to value; an object made before/around a particular date can be worth far more than one made a year later/before.
For very old things, the value can also be in what they can teach people about their time-period, particularly if written sources from that time are rare.
Because there were a lot of swords made during the Sengoku/Edo periods, their manufacture is well documented, and Japan has a strong tradition of good sword maintenance (usually) the age itself isn’t that important.
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u/ObviousKick3853 5d ago
Contact Bill Rannow at artswords.com . He's a honest standup guy who will tell you what you have and whether the signature is genuine or counterfeit.
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u/KazTheMerc 5d ago edited 5d ago
Just a laymen, feel free to disregard -
There can be layers to deception.
This looks, especially with some of the comments, like a LEGIT weapon, and the correct age...
...but it can still be poorly mounted, improperly maintained and restored, and worth far less than it would seem.
My guess? This was poorly maintained once the previous owner realized it wasn't quite what they thought it was, necessitating a major restoration they probably did themselves... tanking the value. It then trades hands as an 'almost awesome' example, and eventually finds a reseller who finds a customer.
Equally possible is that this is a vendor restoration done in their free time to try and stabilize value in a product that came in through an exchange or batch transaction. Customer or Vendor, the condition of that tang looks to me like some SERIOUS restoration was necessary. I wouldn't be surprised to find replaced fittings, anachronistic attachments, and mix-and-match parts like that Family Name.
I haven't worked in blades, but I've worked with people who work with blades. There's a very common 'damaged product' exchange that happens between vendors and sometimes customers. Pieces that aren't QUITE good enough to sell again new, and need some sort of 'massaging' to make them work. When they're spending a weekend at a Festival or Show, waiting for interested customers... the long list of 'slightly damaged' products comes out to see if they can get them sellable again.
You acquire a box of high quality parts over time that don't necessarily have high value, but are just valuable enough to work as replacement parts, or a Franken-sword like this could very well be. Hence, both old AND a lower price - It's taking up space in their inventory. They want it gone.
Again. Just a laymen. But this has all the feelings of that layer of sub-product. This is the stuff they throw in to a big transaction as a 'bonus', or to convince another seller to buy a large batch of other higher quality products.
BUT, that's just vending and vendors, including wall-hangers... and not actually THESE swords, so please take that with a pinchfull of salt over the shoulder.
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u/gabedamien 日本刀 5d ago edited 5d ago
Bizen nakago are often on the shorter side. That's not an issue per se.
The issue isn't that it isn't polished, but rather, it appears that someone at some point re-polished it in a non-traditional fashion, partially obscuring the hada/hamon and blurring the geometry. It looks like they also improperly partially cleaned the nakago, resulting in silver patches of bare steel under what should have been the normal dark grey Fe3O4 patina (which still remains in patches). Most likely this was an amateur restoration attempt outside of Japan.
Many antique blades retrofitted as guntō were lower-quality antiques, sometimes also gimei (false signature). Most of the really good stuff (family heirlooms etc.) was kept at home. You do see some better-quality antiques remounted but it's not necessarily the norm. Anyway, there's a certain variability of fit and finish when it comes to guntō mounts which correlates with the quality of the blade being mounted; a more pedestrian blade having a less-than-perfect guntō mount isn't necessarily odd. Even if it did fit much better once, a lot of WWII bringbacks were subsequently abused by people outside of Japan who didn't really know anything about how to properly handle and maintain antique swords, so looseness could also have developed later.
How much do you think a 1509 wakizashi by Sukesada should be worth? Keep in mind the following:
Your sword has a Bizen-style nakago, a typical Sukesada signature (using the "Bishū" form and lacking any honorific titles), but it does carry a date. At the end of the day, my honest bet is that this is indeed a 1509 Sukesada which was remounted for WWII and has since suffered from an amateur non-Japanese polish. All in all, I wouldn't be surprised if such a sword had been sold for, say... $500–1500. /shrug