Does anyone have any info on these. I got one, an original taken by a Digger of a Jap Officer in the latter yrs of the war.

I do know some things, but I am interested in translating the characters on the hilt end of the blade.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers and beers,
1feral1
Sydney

Those characters are the makers’ signature and other information. (date, cut testing, location, etc.)

MUCH more info under this link – There also several books available on the subject.
[url]http://www.sho-shin.com/index.htm[/url]

Hope this helps

Ow are ya' cobberdiggersport',
(sorry, had to throw that in, my good friend is from Oz )
Well, if you are interested, I could get it translated if you can get scans of the tang.
Let me know.

Dram

Some cost a lot but others are expensive !

Mrs. Fuzzbean is Japanese, and could translate such markings if you post a picture.

This reminds me of a funny incident a couple years ago. Some local know-it-all happens to be a collector of Japanese military rifles, and was having a showing of his collection at the local historical museum. I knew the guy is a bit odd but went to see the rifles along with my wife, who looks very Japanese and even speaks English somewhat poorly. He had dozens of rifles, and proudly showed us examples of almost every model and series made. Now, anybody else would have realized on sight that there is a fair chance my wife is from Japan and would have found out for sure and asked for help reading the markings on the guns. But no, this goofball "explains" to my wife (in the most condescending fashion) what many of the markings meant, and some of them none to accurately! [rolleyes]

He missed a good chance to add to his knowledge, but my wife and I got a good laugh out of it afterwards.

When I had money burning a hole in my pocket, I decided I wanted a samurai sword.  There's a posh, high-end antique store downtown, and I figured if there's one place that'll have a bona fide samurai sword in my town, that's the place.  

So I go in there and ask if they've got any samurai swords.  They did.  The guy started asking extremely specific questions about the sword I wanted, from specific sword smiths from the 17th century and what not.  I was totally out of my depth so I asked for a run down about samurai swords (and WWII Jap officer swords).

He said basically Jap officer swords were cheap stamped, mass-produced jobs that went for $100 or so.  Exception being the rare family heirloom samurai sword that the officer carried into battle and lost when he was killed.  But these were rare as all get out.  BTW all samurai swords were confiscated by the American occupation government.

They had two actual samurai swords that were centuries old.  The cheaper one had beautiful tsuba (sp), hand guard, and grips.  It was $2000.  The other was a bare-stripped samurai sword.  No handguard or sting ray skin grips, just the blade and the wooden handle.  It was $5000.  An honest-to-god samurai sword.  He also had a CD rom of a book by America's leading expert on Jap swords, for $60.  I didn't buy anything.

Thanks Lads, you have been a great help.

Cheers and beers,
1feral1
Sydney