WWII Japanese Sword

[tradertator]

My dad bought this old Japanese soldiers sword the other day, and neither of us know anything about them. Can anyone out there in INGO Land help me identify what some of these markings are or a little more information about it? Thanks

 

[bingley]

On one side of the blade: Shōwa 14 [=1940] Satō Kotarō [name]
On the other: tennō [emperor]

I don't know much about gunto (military swords). A quick check on the internet shows that there is someone making fake swords with these inscriptions and passing them off as antiques.

 

[T/SF34/A]

I can't help with the markings but I've read a lot of history about the Japanese and WWII. Seems stories of their swords and their use against American POWs come up often.

 

[Faine]

It's rare for a japanese wwii sword to look that clean from what I've seen. I'm not an expert but I was pretty sure the makers marks on Japanese katanas where on the tang under the grip and that generally they make very few marks visible to the naked eye. English numbers seem strange to me as well given this was pre hostile takeover.

Edit: is the grip metal? That's unusual if it is, should be cloth.

 

[TaunTaun]

The all metal handle indicates that if it is real, would be a NCO shin gunto. Meaning that it belonged to a non-commissioned officer. The earlier models in the war had handles (tsukas) that were made from copper . It was common to have serial numbers stamped on them as they were, without exception, all machine made.

There were numerous fake swords made, even during the war, by the chinese. A good way to look to see if it is fake is to look for any acid etching on the blade. These machine made swords were never acid etched. And the poorer reproductions lack habaki (that cover just at the top of the tsukas that you can see at the base of the blade.

Although not 100% positive, since I am not there to examine the blade, I am 90% sure just from the pictures that it is a chinese knock-off.

 

[M67]

With the metal handle, I'd expect to see different placement and style of the serial number like the pic above (it should be a machine made sword)

The markings it does have, just doesn't look right.

How thick is the blade?

 

[tradertator]

Thanks for the info guys. The overall build of it feels really nice, handle looks to be brass, and the blade is pretty heavy. Being the chrysanthemums are mostly ground off, it gave me the impression that if it's real, it was a captured one. But that would be an easy detail to fake to give off that impressoon.

 

[indyjohn]

It's still cool. Hope you didn't give a small fortune for it.

 

[tradertator]

It's still cool. Hope you didn't give a small fortune for it.

He has close to nothing in it, so no big deal either way

 

[tradertator]

Had a buddy that's really well versed on these, and it's definitely a reproduction. Should make a cool toy to play with though. Thanks for the responses.