I am going to keep trying to ID the writing. Some here have referred to stamped characters. I have taken another close look at the backstrap under magnification and two things have stood out to me. One is that all characters look to be hand engraved. I don't think they were stamped.


The second thing is that there are what appear as straight file cross lines covering the back strap. These look to have been done after the characters were cut into the back strap. The character at the very top of the back strap looks to have been partly filed away rather than worn.


It is anybody's guess what this means. It could have been done at the time the characters were hand engraved in order to remove burrs from the engraver tool , or it could have been done later to remove rust ? My gut says that they smoothed the back strap to remove metal standing up from the chisel engraving. No sign of general rust - a little very light rust near the bottom that I easily whipped off with a little oil and 0000 steel wool.

Trying to be fully realistic, to me that would also bring a possibility that someone tried to fake a gun and story. That however leaves the stocks with the carving which do not look like anything recently done at all. (neither does the engraving)


If a fake was attempted here, it sure did not work out well because the price I paid was perhaps 1/2 of what the gun in non modified condition should go for.


My opinion at this time is that all is genuine and the modifications were made in Japan prior to WW2 . I just wanted to share a couple more details that I suppose are once again part of the mystery, and I am aware that folks also do things to try to add value to what they sell.


So far it looks like the gun was shipped to Japan according to opoefc's records. It also looks like there are no military or registration marks on the gun. The military would have not let someone modify the grips in that manner (at least I think not) So the guns history is dependent mostly on a translation. Who knows what happened to this gun from the time of the early 1870's to WW2 ? It would certainly not be a military issued item in the 1940's , yet if the story is true it was in service by some Japanese soldier as likely a family item like many of the swords that passed from generation to generation.


PS: I stated previously that after reviewing the web site on how to tell the different writing of Korea , China, and Japan, that to my eye it looks to be Japanese. To a more trained eye it may be possible that it is Chinese but I don't think so. I am 90% confident the writing is Japanese. - I can always be wrong to . It is definitely not Korean.