Hi I have purchased a sword from a e bay Web site .a store in Japan.. It is stated as a wakasashi,however the nagasa is 630mm.the tsuka is 250mm long the mei is said to read,Noushu ju Tanikuni Yoshikane.
It also has a sho stamp,
I can not find any clear information on this smith.also I am trying to establish if this is a mass produced sword ,I understand in that you can not help at this stage without sight of the blade.

I own a Hizen kuni yoshikane katana and a Hizen kuni yoshikane wakasashi.
Whilst I have several other swords, ie, sukesada ,masaie,

I am new to this club and hope to find some information regarding a WW2 Gunto "Bring Back" sword. I have seen many swords over the years but none grabbed me like this one did. It had a cloth tie-down placed there by the Japanese soldier that surrendered it.

Hello Everyone
I am back again studying and researching swords in my collection. I have a Naval Officers sword
which was surrendered with a Surrender tag. Rust on the edge of the tang make it difficult to identify the smith. I would be interested in the Family name on the Surrender tag and of course the name of the smith..
Mush appreciate if someone could assist
thank you

My friend has a unsigned Wakizashi with the Tsuba pictured below. I'm curious if anybody has an idea when and where the Tsuba was made. Thanks in advance.

This is my first post. A friend has a wakazashi that her father brought back from Japan in the 1950s. I'd appreciate any help on translating the kanji.

Aloha from Hawaii.

Harada

With Andy's information I was able to find a similar Mei. Added an additional slide (Eureka) that was accompanied with the following writeup:
Katana: Musashi Daijyo Sakon Korekazu (1st generation)
Katana in Shirasaya(NBTHK Hozon Paper)
Signature: Musashi Daijyo Sakon Korekazu (１st　gen)
The blade was polished.
Habaki: syakudo single habaki.
Blade length : 69.6cm or 27.41inches.

Hi everybody,
I have this sword with a signature of Tada Katsu. On the other side of the tang is the kanji indicating the date....Please could you help in translating the first two kanji.

thank you

Andy

I made a mistake and put this under the wrong heading at first, this is my attempt to correct it.

Hello everyone , sorry for my english I 'm french and not easy for me to write in English.
I bought a katana kind efu no tachi with a signed noshu ju Kanemoto blade, nakago was shortened and folded signature on the original silk kind orikaeshi mei, the blade measures 71cm long but probably more in the beginning, it is 2.9 cm motorcycle haba tempering resembles a sanbonsugui which stops just before the boshi , tempering back on the tip which stops before shinogi .
I wanted to know if the signature was good and what is this blade Kanemoto
thank you

Some time ago I ran across a table online that listed Japanese sword smith names by the number of strokes in their kanji. I believe it was from the "Meiboku" website. Since then, I am unable to open that site anymore, I believe it was shut down. I was able to find a limited number of kanji stroke counting smith names on the JSSUS site, but not anywhere near the number I found on the Meiboku site. Does anyone know where I can find a large number of Japanese smiths kanji stroke counting table. I have a Chinese girlfriend who is able to do an accurate kanji stroke count for me.

So I've read and partially agree with the saying, "Buy the sword, not the smith/mei." But my disagreement with that sentiment is; if I want to send a sword to Japan for a polish or a shinsa, I would rather it not be a gimei. If I have a $1000 sword and a possible $10000 sword, it's easy to see which one I'd want to invest $3000 in. I have a couple of the better smiths named swords. Blogs tell us that 90% are gimie, which is probably correct. So how do I tell for sure? I've done my internet searches with mixed results.