Jump to content

Style 1 Police Short Swords and Daggers


SARGE
 Share

Recommended Posts

The Japanese Police utilized four (4) distinct styles of short swords for lower ranks according to Jim Dawson in his book, "Swords of Imperial Japan 1868-1945". Dawson shows these four styles of short swords in Chapter 24 of his book and calls them Police Bureau Swords for Patrolmen (junsa) and Sergeants (junsa-bucho). Bear in mind that these Japanese Police swords are very diverse and not yet fully understood by collectors.



I will use Dawson's nomenclature and show two Style 1 Police Swords/Daggers. The first short sword is similar in style to other Patrolman and Sergeant rank swords. The uncleaned brass hilt does contain a Police badge on the pommel and does not have a full D shaped guard as does the Style 4 short sword. The Style 1 swords have a different shaped back strap/pommel than the Style 3 and Style 4 swords with a similar, flatter, partial guard to the Style 3. The brass hilts sometimes show signs of gold plating and can have sharkskin or leather grips. The short blades are typically machine made or reworked from older blades and are not plated. The steel scabbards are nickel or chrome plated. The sword knot is the standard brown leather knot seen on other NCO swords.



This short sword has an interesting marking on the blade near the habaki. The caricature is the same as a two caricature Kami (God) stamp shown on page 82 of the Fuller & Gregory book "Military Swords of Japan 1868-1945". This stamp is listed as, "...Significance unknown. Very rare". There is another of these Style 1 short swords in the hands of a collector that is identical to this sword except the caricature is stamped on the blade underneath the brushed silver habaki and is not visible until the sword is taken apart. My sword has a 17 1/2" long blade measured from the guard to the tip. The traditional blade shows a faint hamon and an ubu-ha blunt area on the edge for about 1 1/2" in front of the habaki. I suspect the sword is Showato but it is hard to tell since most of these police swords have weapon grade polished blades. Mine is very possibly a reworked older blade but the blade on the other collector's sword has no hole in the tang so his was seemingly purpose made in the traditional style for his sword. The blades could be made of mono-steel instead of tamaghane but his is missing the hole in the nakago that is indicative of a reworked older wakizashi.

Jap police sword.JPG

Jap police sword hilt.JPG

Jap police sword marking.JPG

Jap police sword knot.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The second Style 1 that I will show is actually not a sword but a dagger. This dagger is not shown in Dawson's sword book but these are generally considered to be worn by Officers and not by Patrolmen or Sergeants. This dagger follows the form of the Style 1 sword but has a short straight un-plated blade and a short straight nickel plated steel scabbard with one suspension ring. This dirk/dagger is shown in the Fuller & Gregory book and is discussed on pages 65-66.



This dirk/dagger has the same general hilt shape as the longer Style 1 short sword for Police. It has a partial S shaped guard without a hole in the end that a sword knot would go through. It has a back strap with little decoration and a fairly flat plane without the "ears" and a circle found on Style 3 & Style 4 short sword back straps. The pommel is of a different shape than the Style 3 and Style 4 and does have a five point Japanese Police badge on the back of the pommel. There is no provision for a sword knot on the pommel of the dagger. The grips on this dagger are covered in sharkskin.



These daggers have been reproduced in recent years and collectors should beware of examples with fancy back straps showing a rising sun decoration.

Japanese Police dagger.JPG

Japanese Police dagger hilt.JPG

Japanese Police dagger pommel.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is an example of the Style 1 Police short sword in wear. Notice the plain back strap made without "ears" and the raised Police badge that is visible on the back of the pommel. Also notice the brown leather sword knot on the hilt and the single suspension ring on the steel scabbard.

 

 

Jap Police.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...