Naval parade saber....

[Bruce Pennington]

That "S" is normally found on steel items like helmets and shovels and stands for Kobe Steel.

Thanks Nick! Forgive my ignorance in this, but is the Kobe Steel the company that made the item, or does it simply indicate the tsuba was made WITh Kobe Steel? I ask because there was a Kobe making Type 95s, but they were "Kobe Shoten" not "Kobe Steel".

[Nick Komiya]

It meant made by Kobe Steel. They made bulletproof steel, requiring tempering and quenching, so Type 95 would have been a natural thing for them to produce.

[Kiipu]

I recently got a Tsuba for what appears to be a Pattern 3 Type 95, it has what looks like a 'S' in a diamond. It looks like it's meant to be Rinji Specs, except that it is made of brass and not steel!

As Nick has already pointed out, the trademark does look like the one used by KK Kōbe Seikōjo 株式會社･神戸製鋼所. This was a large company with many factories. Besides helmets and shovels, the Kōbe Steel Works Company, Limited, also made grenade dischargers 八九式重擲彈筒. Below is an illustration of the logo taken from a 1935 advertisement.

[Bruce Pennington]

Again, many thanks Nick and Thomas! I've added the S in diamond stamp to the Stamps document.

[stegel]

That "S" is normally found on steel items like helmets and shovels and stands for Kobe Steel.

Thanks Nick,
I knew i'd seen it before! i remember reading that thread about the shovels, just couldn't pinpoint the source in my last post.