Type 3 Guntō Signed Kanematsu (兼松), 1944

The Type 3 Military Sword (三式軍刀), formally the Rinji Seishiki (臨時制式, “contingency model”), was the Imperial Japanese Army’s improved late-war officer mounting, introduced around 1943. It answered practical complaints about the earlier Type 98 Shin Guntō: a sturdier grip, more secure blade retention with two mekugi, and heavier fittings built to survive hard field use.

The nakago is signed 兼松 — Kanematsu, a smith of the Seki tradition of Mino province (the 兼 kane- prefix is the long-standing Seki signature marker), and dated November 1944 (Shōwa 19), very late in the war. It carries no arsenal or inspection stamp: neither a Seki or Shō stamp, which would mark a blade as a non-traditional shōwatō, nor a star stamp, which would confirm a traditionally-forged RJT gendaitō. The absence of a stamp is not in itself an attribution. The Type 3 designation describes only the koshirae, and the blade is offered unpapered and not formally appraised, on the merits of its wartime workmanship, its method of make undetermined.

The blade is 67 cm long. It is out of polish but sound, with light surface staining and an age-patinated nakago (which should not be cleaned). The mounting is complete: a pierced, blackened iron tsuba and seppa, cherry-blossom fuchi and pommel, a same’-wrapped leather-corded grip, and the original hanger ring, all in a steel saya that shows genuine field wear, its paint scratched and rubbed to bare metal in places. A characterful, complete late-war officer’s guntō.