Squirrel's nest
08-Apr-2003, 04:28 PM
My grandpa was in the army, and he acquired a very nice katana during the occupation of Japan right after WWII. It will be mine some day, and I want to know more about it. A while ago, my dad worked with a few of his friends to track down the smith. He ran into the problem of multiple smiths having the same or similar names, so he couldn't quite track it down.
On one side of the tang, the Japanese translates loosly to "Japan smithing master craftsman" so I don't think that helps much. The other side is more interesting. It has a Sixteen-petal chrysanthemum closest to the blade (you can kind of see it in the picture down below) After that, the Japanese reads "Hira ga (no)kami fugi wara kana michi" I can't read Japanese, but you can look at the picture and see if that is correct or not. If individual characters are blurry or something (I apologize for my really poor photography skills) then I have some other photos which might have some characters clearer than others.
The three possible smiths that my dad tracked it down to are:
Tamba no kami yoshimichi: 1673 Settsu
Inue Shinkai: 1672 Settsu (the mosamune of Osako)
Sukenega (Bizen tradition) 1795 – 1851 Osatane (yokoyema style)
I have no idea how he came to those, and they might not be useful at all, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least list them. Any help would be welcome with this. Also, speculations about the chrysanthemum that appears on the tang, and also other places on the tsuka. I know that the chrysanthemum is a symbol of Japanese royalty, so it oculd be imporntant.
If you need any more details, feel free to ask. I have to crop the photos like crazy, and even had to split it into two sections to get them under the maximum size. The one here is the characters on the tang written out. I will do put one of the rubbing of the tang in a message under this one. If you want the photo in one piece, or want one of the tang or any other part of the katana, I can email it to you. They are too large to even think about posting here though.
On one side of the tang, the Japanese translates loosly to "Japan smithing master craftsman" so I don't think that helps much. The other side is more interesting. It has a Sixteen-petal chrysanthemum closest to the blade (you can kind of see it in the picture down below) After that, the Japanese reads "Hira ga (no)kami fugi wara kana michi" I can't read Japanese, but you can look at the picture and see if that is correct or not. If individual characters are blurry or something (I apologize for my really poor photography skills) then I have some other photos which might have some characters clearer than others.
The three possible smiths that my dad tracked it down to are:
Tamba no kami yoshimichi: 1673 Settsu
Inue Shinkai: 1672 Settsu (the mosamune of Osako)
Sukenega (Bizen tradition) 1795 – 1851 Osatane (yokoyema style)
I have no idea how he came to those, and they might not be useful at all, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least list them. Any help would be welcome with this. Also, speculations about the chrysanthemum that appears on the tang, and also other places on the tsuka. I know that the chrysanthemum is a symbol of Japanese royalty, so it oculd be imporntant.
If you need any more details, feel free to ask. I have to crop the photos like crazy, and even had to split it into two sections to get them under the maximum size. The one here is the characters on the tang written out. I will do put one of the rubbing of the tang in a message under this one. If you want the photo in one piece, or want one of the tang or any other part of the katana, I can email it to you. They are too large to even think about posting here though.