Jisho

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5 Replies ・ Started by RoninofWNY at 2018-02-20 17:37:39 UTC ・ Last reply by RoninofWNY at 2018-02-21 04:04:19 UTC

Can some one identify this kanji

This kanji was carved into the nakago of a modern sword and while I am fairly confident in my translation of the date I can not for the life of me translate this. The first character looks an awful lot like the character for Hitachi but I'm not a hundred percent confident on that and I can't even remotely figure out the second character

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v371/battousaiofnphiles/unidentified%20kanji.jpg

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Zengor at 2018-02-20 22:01:37 UTC

Did you draw this yourself or something like that? It would be nice to get a picture as the first character isn't anything I can recognize, but 昭 seems the closest and would make sense paired with the second, as it is definitely 和.

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RoninofWNY at 2018-02-20 22:19:43 UTC

I traced it from the tang inscription. I'll upload a picture of the tang it self in a minute

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RoninofWNY at 2018-02-20 22:38:52 UTC

Here is the actual nakago, you can clearly see this is not a showa era blade, it is no doubt Heisei period blade. if that is in fact showa, this sword was an in-progress or abandoned forgery when it was obtained by it's current owner. If my translation on the rest of the date is correct it would be fitting for the blade condition. Was I mistaken in the February of 2008 (20th year second month) translation on the rest of the Mei?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v371/battousaiofnphiles/unidentified%20kanji_2.jpg

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Zengor at 2018-02-21 01:58:04 UTC

Well, that's 昭和 (I had never seen it written like that before, but then again maybe that's a common way to do it in nakago). That date would be 2008 if it said 平成二十年, but in the 昭和 era that's 1945.

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RoninofWNY at 2018-02-21 04:04:19 UTC

Then, the smith screwed up the mei and put down the wrong era or it's a forgery, probably the latter. That said it's likely not a legitimate Japanese made blade. Friend of mine who is a blade smith acquired this blade bundled in with a handful of other blades, this one the only one bearing a mei. It was in new clean steel state when he got it so he set it aside to be a future project piece. after sitting for a couple few years he decided to dig into that mei a little deeper.

I made my initial date translation based on the condition of the steel among other things. It bares the mark of a non traditional made blade in the correct location however it is not a familiar mark found between 38-45. everything else was pointing toward the current era so I assumed current era and came up with 2008 but, something didn't seem right which is what brought me here.

Thank you.

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