WW2 sword help

regulator1977 · Jul 19, 2011

A good friend of mine's dad was in ww2 he brought home a sword off the battlefield.

I am new here if someone can pm me there email I have a few pic's

SShepherd · Jul 19, 2011

use photobucket to post pics here

regulator1977 · Jul 20, 2011

Try this link

http://i1091.photobucket.com/albums/i392/REGULATOR1977

regulator1977 · Jul 20, 2011

Ok I think this link works

http://i1091.photobucket.com/albums/i392/REGULATOR1977/IMAG0094.jpg

Lee Bray · Jul 20, 2011

It does, but we're just seeing the kashira of the handle.
Can't really tell you anything from that 'cept it looks to be a genuine ww2 handle.

regulator1977 · Jul 20, 2011

Ok I am new to Photobucket as well. Here is another picture of the blade. More to follow.

Triton · Jul 20, 2011

Hard to really say based on two pictures but so far it looks like a typical shin gunto mounts on a typical shin gunto blade.

Courtesy of Therion Arms:

regulator1977 · Jul 20, 2011

He or his father have never took the handle off. Should they?

Triton · Jul 20, 2011

It might be a worthwhile exercise but before doing that I think I'd check out Rich Stein's Japanese sword index. It may well be that you can identify the sword without taking it apart. I haven't seen anything to this point that would indicate it is anything other than a machine made shin gunto. Rich posts here sometimes perhaps he will be along to add an expert (as opposed to my completely amateur) opinion.

http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/nihonto.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/military.htm

DennisMenace · Jul 28, 2011

regulator1977

Check out this website:

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_002.htm

From the limited amount of pictures you posted, to my untrained eye, it might be this one:

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_016.htm

My dad also brought home a Japanese sword from the Solomon Islands campaign. I would not trade it for all the fake chinese copies in the the world!

SShepherd · Jul 28, 2011

interesting hamon so far........

whatever you do, do not attempt to "clean it"

more pics of the blade, and remove the tsuka if you can. if you dont feel comfortable doing that tell us where you live and you might have someone close to you that can look at it.