Japanese Tanto Knife - Help Needed

[Airbornehunter]

A friend of mine picked this up recently and showed it to me. I couldn't tell him anything about it, so I thought I'd post it here. Does anyone have anything they could share on it? Thanks ABN

[ghp95134]

Nothing much to report since I cannot see the tang (if there is a name). Other than that, it is a tanto blade in aikuchi [合口] mounts.

...The aikuchi (合口 or 匕首) is a form of koshirae for small swords in which the hilt and the scabbard meet without a crossguard between them.The word literally means ai ("meeting") + kuchi ("mouth; opening"), in reference to the way the hilt fits directly against the scabbard. Originally used on the koshigatana (a precursor to the wakizashi) to facilitate close wearing with armour, it became a fashionable upper-class mounting style for a tantō (literally, "small sword", nowadays regarded as a dagger) from the Kamakura period onwards.

-- Guy

[Bruce Pennington]

There are a ton of guys expert on these over at the Nihonto forum of NMB: Nihonto - Nihonto Message Board

I recently read a discussion where they said the round metal mekugi that is holding the handle onto the blade tang is either threaded or held by friction. In either case, you should be able to unscrew the two halves to remove it, then the handle will come off.