Japanese Type 92 Sword 'Otsu' Help Please
Article about: Good afternoon to all. I have the opportunity to pick this up and would like to make sure it is a good item before I negotiate. The sword or sabre (not sure which is correct but believe swor
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Thank you. I am not sure why I had 92 in my head. I knew better.
John
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The Type 32 Otsu 三十二年式軍刀乙 should have an overall length with scabbard of 933mm (36.75 inches) and a blade length of 30.5 inches.
You need to turn the handguard picture around so as to read the markings, which consist of three rows. The top row, if present, will have the date and in this case looks to be Meiji 40 〇四明, reading from right to left. The middle row is the arsenal logo which should be the stacked cannon balls of Tōkyō Artillery Arsenal 東京砲兵工廠. The bottom row usually consists of two kanji characters which are inspection marks.
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Made in Meiji 40, or 1907. The leather finger loop looks too new also. It's a real piece of history, but someone "fixed it up" a little too well. It's one of those "if it strikes your fancy, go ahead" items. I've got a couple of Type 95s that were post-war painted. I've restored them as best as I can and glad to have rescued them. But it just depends on your collecting tastes.
Oh, and the stamps are read the other way round, read right to left, first kanji of Meiji, 4, 0. Middle is Kokura Arsenal stamp, and bottom 2 are likely inspector stamps. I'd post the corrected view, but when I upload it, the image is upside-down from my photo!
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Thank you for the information and replies. I am going to try to update the photo here.
John
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