Nihonto Club

The signature is Yasutsugu. Just judging by the quality of the carving and the freshness of the tang I would say it is gimei, but that's just my feeling on it. Have a look online for examples of Yasutsugu and you can make your own mind up. Looks like a nice tanto though.

I had a sinking feeling that it was a gemie, I did not realize the carving was so poor till I walked into natural light. Is there any other information on the tang other than the Smith's name, and the second odd hole..... Thanks again for your input.

Interesting. It looks rather "real", but also looks "new"...
There is nothing "poor" about the carving of the signature.
The back side is a date: something 3 nen 8 gatsu hi.
The 'something' is the nengo (era name), but I don't recognize it.

It makes me think it is meant to be a quality copy of an old blade, but I could be wrong.

Pete

It's the mon that doesn't look right to me, quite rough compared to others I've seen on Yasutsugu swords. I think Pete could be right that this is a copy of an older blade.

My wife says that the nengo (era name in the date) is KYOu-something.
Given that, the possibilities are:
Kyotoku (1452)
Kyoroku (1528)
Kyoho (1716)
Kyowa (1801)

Of these choices, Kyotoku is "closest", but it really doesn't match very well. It's pretty sketchy...

Pete

So real blade or fake signature or real blade real signature and fake engraving? It's a shame I was told the blade had papers which the seller is haveing trouble finding now..

Thanks for all the help

One other possibility to explain why the tang and signature look "new":
Perhaps the blade is old, but (for some reason) the tang was "re-made" by reshaping it, re-doing the yasurime (filemarks), and re-chiseling the signature.
For example, if the blade used to be much longer, but was broken.
I don't think this is very likely, but...

Pete