1944, Tokyo Arsenal
Thank you Nick. Interesting and perhaps unusual to have a frog marked in a way to identify a date and arsenal. I would guess that leather frogs were not marked by ink as it would quickly wear off.
Not unusual but mandatory.
Yours is in ink, because it is rubberized ersatz material, not leather.
Markings were only necessary in the production process and in the warehouse (how long an item could be stored from the manufacturing date was specified by item), so once issued, it did not matter how quickly they faded away from oiling, etc.
Nick has already provided a translation in post #2 so I would only like to add that the final character is an inspection mark.
昭十九 = 1944.
Kokura Army Arsenal logo with 小 alongside.
The 小 is the final inspection stamp used by Kokura Army Arsenal.
What material is your frog made of? It almost looks like compressed paper?
Hi Kiipu: The material is definitely not rubberized canvas. Nick had tagged it earlier as a rubber material. It is that. But hardened. Per Raymond Labar's book, it appears to be an LBF-59. But no anchor marking as shown in his book. Not many varieties of rubber frogs shown in Labar's book. The frog is attached to a ball tipped scabbard with an LB-95 bayonet, Hikari Seiki "Tokyo Hourglass". Per Labar's book, Hikari Seiki was a subcontract plant of the Kokura arsenal. Not sure how a frog made in 1944 got on a ball tipped scabbard, as that sort of scabbard was made early. I would have expected a tubular tipped scabbard to go with a frog from 1944. But all that now is lost in time.
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