I am offered a Samurai sword that is said to be from 1945. The only thing is that the original hole in the grip is filled up and as I understood two new holes were made to make the blade fit. I'm not sure if I understood well but this is what I was told. My question if this could have been done period or if it is for certain that this was done after the war. I enclosed the images that I received. Should I let this one go. Th eprice is about 600 usd. Thanks for all opinions.

pic 2

This is the place where the hole has been filled.

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last one

My guess is that the handle was originally fitted on another sword. The original hole was covered up and two new holes were added when it was put on this sword. It could be period done or something that that was done more recently.

Frederico-
Japanese sword handles are hand made and fitted to each individual sword. The two hole nakago is not that unusual. The blade was designed to have a double pinned handle. With the late date of 1945 on this sword, one must conisder that the craftsman pool of talent had been greatly diluted by this time. Women were enlisted to wrap sword handles. As this craft requires great hand strength, many late war handles have wrapping that is either loose or has come off.
The most likely scenario is that the position of the hole was mismeasured, corrected and the mistake filled. I have seen this before in military mounted blade. However, the concept of the handle being on another sword is very unlikely.
Bob

I would agree that sword handles are hand made and fitted to each sword. With that being said, to me, it would seem unlikely that one hole was drilled in the wrong location being the nakago (with the holes in it already existing) is used as a template. I don’t think they “measure” the pattern / location for the holes in the tsuka. They would lay the nakago on to the tsuka blank and drill it out most likely by hand. It doesn’t leave much room for error.
In my opinion, the possibility exists that the handle was originally not intended for a two hole nakago but was used anyways by plugging one hole and adding two new ones. This doesn’t mean the handle isn’t the original one for this sword as it left the “factory”. Remember it was late in the war so they weren’t going to waste anything and a minor cosmetic flaw would probably been acceptable. However, the timeframe when this was done is still anybodies guess. All that you have to do is look on ebay and see how many gunto tsukas are being sold to realize that they are being fitted to swords that have handles missing or badly damaged. Often times these handles will fit fairly well on other WWII era swords with little or no fitting required and can be difficult to spot.
Frederico, I think you are the best judge as to the correctness of this sword handle. I would look for fittings that don’t match as well as they should, loose tsuba, etc., to help you form an opinion as to its originality and when the work was done. If all looks well, I wouldn’t be concerned about the extra hole.

Thank you both for your opinions. I wouldn't mind to have this example after your remarks. However, considering its price which is around 600 usd, I think I could also buy one of which the handle fits perfectly to the blade. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Regards,

Frederico

Frederico,
The price of Japanese swords has continued to climb to the point where even machine made NCOs swords are going for $300-$700 on ebay. Without seeing this sword in person, I could not tell you what I think it might be worth or what I would be willing to pay for it. I can tell you that $600 does not buy a whole lot when it comes to Japanese swords. The best I could tell you is that the price seems reasonable for a signed sword if the condition is good and most importantly, that you like it.

Good luck to you with your decision.
Gary

I agree that even machine nco swords
are around $600.00 and not really nice
ones!

Didn't see anything at SOS for $600.00


PVON