Japanese blade

[Timo Nieminen]

Superficially, it looks like a modern Chinese-made "ninja sword". Straight, 20"/50cm blade, tang a suitable length for mounting with a 12" tsuka/hilt. The habaki looks very much like those used on modern Chinese-made katana (and ninja swords).

However, if it's from the 1950s, this isn't what it is. Also, the details of the tip are not like the modern Chinese-made ninja swords.

The tang has no hole for a pin, so it hasn't been mounted Japanese-style. It's either been left as a bare blade or was mounted with the tang glued-in, SE Asian style rather than Japanese-style (pinned). If it was mounted, why is the rust so uniform? So maybe never mounted.

So, some speculations:

• Modern Chinese-made ninja sword blade, never mounted, artificially aged - unusual for the tip to be modified in this kind of fakery
• Old SE Asian ninja sword made for tourist sale c. 1950 - the habaki looks very modern in style; the old SE Asian (mostly Indonesian?) replicas/fakes used different styles of habaki
• Old SE Asian imitation-Japanese cane/stick sword, c. 1950 - habaki is still a bit of a mystery
• Old Japanese cane/stick sword, age inconnu - AFAIK, these would usually have been pinned. Maybe some were glued.

Originally Posted by Lee

The length of the tang suggests to me that this may be a polearm blade. Referring to Knutsen's Japanese Spears: Polearms and their Use in Old Japan I see some similarity to a kikuchi-yari in fig. 17. As previously noted, it may also be a form from elsewhere in the region.

It's a normal length of tang for an 11" or 12" tsuka (which is long for a blade as short as this, traditionally, but common on modern Chinese-made blades).

Very short for a kikuchi-yari tang; plate 3 in Knutsen shows a typical one.