Nihonto Club

Tim,

Yes, there was a swordsmith Kanemune, 1st son of Amahide. I'm not a big specialist in Gendaito (modern) swords, but some information on Kanemune can be found in John Slough's book Modern Japanese Swordsmiths 1868-1945 (page 50), as reference is saying. You might ask somebody who has this book to scan this page for you. The oshigata for this smith can be found here (look for Kanemune (Fukumoto) ).

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Stan

Hi Tim,
I once had a sword also signed 'kanemune' , also a sword by 'amahide' (father and son) and at the time had some good correspondence with Richard Fuller, he sent me this infomation that he 'kanemune' also signed 'shoshinshi fukumoto kanemune', fukumoto koichi kanemune', and that he worked at the 'seki nihon to tan ran jo', was formerly fukumoto koichi and is the son of amahide. Hawleys reference KAN 1625 has him working in mino province and the comment fukumoto - koichi maybe his family and first name I think
regards
falconj

you will find also information here

http://home.earthlink.net/~ttstein/tosho.htm

hope this helps
regards

falconj

Statistically, there were around 1 1/2 million swords existing before World War II. Around 1/3 of them were over 2 feet in length (daito). At present, there are more samurai swords in the United Sates than there are in Japan. Japan has no more than 100,000 swords today. Around 250,000 to 350,000 swords has been brought into United States as war souvenirs by returning servicemen after the end of Pacific War during the occupation of Japan. Most of them are long sword (daito) which is formerly used by Japanese commissioned and non-commissioned officers. Around 70% of the long sword are in United States today. Swords of buke-zukuri type, neo-army (shin-gunto) type, proto-army type (kyu-gunto) type, police sabers, army parade sabers, navy types, ken and jindachi-zukuri types have been brought into United States

Iaido Swords