Help with Surrender Tag

[Geoff Ward]

I recently picked up a sword from a friend of mine which had a surrender tag attached I was hoping to get some help with the translation any help appreciated! Regards,Geoff

[ghp95134]

馬場正巳
Baba Masami
[Baba is the surname]

三中隊三
3rd Company, 3....


--Guy

[Geoff Ward]

Thank you Guy, I thought it was a bit strange that the part of the tag with the 三中隊三 has no other characters?? would this be a way of attempting to keep information away from U.S. intelligence ?? The tag is not missing a piece so it appears there were never any other characters written after the second 三 ?? Thanks,Geoff

[ghp95134]

Thank you Guy, I thought it was a bit strange that the part of the tag with the 三中隊三 has no other characters?? would this be a way of attempting to keep information away from U.S. intelligence ?? The tag is not missing a piece so it appears there were never any other characters written after the second 三 ?? Thanks,Geoff

Geoff,

My only guess is that he ran out of space -- what logically would follow after company is "platoon"; my guess is that it should have been:

三小隊
San Shōtai
3d Platoon


--Guy

[Geoff Ward]

That would make perfect sense. What I thought might have been information that may have been omitted, may have been left off because it was assumed that the 小隊 Shotai (Platoon) would have been a logical assumption??? and not therefore necessary, as there is a good three or four inches of material on the tag below the bottom 三 which would have been plenty of room to add additional information. Just thinking out loud..

[MichaelB]

Geoff and Guy-
I recently spoke to a friend who was shown a sword that appeared to have a wood and a cloth surrender tag. Would it have been common/normal to have 2 tags on 1 sword? If seen, was it simply for security in case one was lost?

MichaelB

[BOB COLEMAN]

Geoff and Guy-
I recently spoke to a friend who was shown a sword that appeared to have a wood and a cloth surrender tag. Would it have been common/normal to have 2 tags on 1 sword? If seen, was it simply for security in case one was lost?

MichaelB

That is not something I have encountered in the past. Possibly, the wood tag was a form of formal identification added at the time the sword was surrendered. It is so unusual that I doubt any reply will be nothing more than conjecture.

[MichaelB]

Thanks Bob. I was told that the information on the tags appeared to be nearly the same, so wondered the logic. Thank you again for the quick feedback.

MichaelB

[ghp95134]

Thanks Bob. I was told that the information on the tags appeared to be nearly the same, so wondered the logic. Thank you again for the quick feedback.

MichaelB

Get an image from your friend and post it -- let's see what they both say! (^__^)

--Guy

[MichaelB]

Guy-
The sword was presented at a local show last week where the owner was looking for feedback. Sorry, no images......

MichaelB