Group of Samurai by the Sphinx in 1864

[laEspadaAncha]

Originally Posted by trenchwarfare

During the rebellion, any and all available blades were seized, and hastily assembled into swords. Often by unskilled individuals. Ito, was usually narrow, or even round cord. The wrapping technique was different, and left long narrow openings, revealing the same. Simple iron washers were used for menuki. The sword in the picture appears to have these narrow openings. This style wrap, also appears on WWII era Island made swords. (And, early Chinese fakes)

Hi TW,

You must have the eyes of a hawk then, as I see ito that looks pretty similar to the ito I've seen on nearly every nihonto I've ever encountered.

I get what you're saying about the ito, but at that resolution, I see no iron menuki, no plain iron band kashira or fuchi, and to me the ito looks no different than other ito.

Here's a photo of "Satsuma Rebellion koshirae:"



I put it in quotation marks as there was a good discussion on NMB a few years ago about the validity of this attribution... the Samurai who fought during the Satsuma Rebelion were just that... Samurai, and thus they would already have owned a proper katana en suite with a wakizashi, with no need for cobbled-together kazu-uchi mono. It is therefore the impression of the Curator Emeritus of the Oriental Collections of the Royal Armoury Museum at Leeds that the poorly-assembled koshirae we refer to as "Satsuma Rebellion" pieces had nothing to do with the Satsuma Rebellion!