Translation needed. Friend's grandfather passed this down to him, he has no idea what it says and is looking for info. Any help appreciated! Thanks in advance.
This was posted in an online social media site that is aimed towards prior/active military by veterans that I'm active on. Some of the "translation" suggestions would violate ToS so hard it isn't even funny .
Looks like 豊？住藤原正？ The question marks are unreadable. Might be this guy though http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/高田行長 Sorry its all Japanese but he was a 16th-17th C craftsman.
From what I understand, there is a very large number of Kanji characters that were employed...its a signature by the maker - the swordsmith, if I'm not mistaken - or at least the signature comprises a large part of what would be written However, I've been on a roll lately with painfully-obvious-yesterday posts, so if this is another, please ignore
That's the gist of the comments/feedback the guy is getting. Nobody has really hit the mark yet in actually translating it.
There are Japanese Vertical Writing translators - but that won't help...I came across something once about this...if I can find it... http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/kanji/kanji1.htm To quote part of it: " Reading the mei (signatures) of Japanese swords is a very difficult task even for experts. It is hoped that the following tables may aid in translating the signatures of swordsmiths"
The best place online to look for assistance in this sort of thing is probably the Sword Forum. Translating nakago inscriptions is a bit esoteric, and the collector community is your most reliable bet.
