The 'kanji' on our knives

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I recently purchased a cheap piece of metal which looked like an unfinished blade. Thought of just re-profiling it to make a kitchen knife of sorts.

I gave it a vinegar bath for a couple days to get the heavy build up of rust off and it uncovered a useful looking blade with a quenched cutting edge (darker than the rest of the metal on the blade).

While getting the rest of the gunk off with steel wool, I chanced upon a series of what seem to be Kanji symbols engraved / stamped into the side of the blade.

Wondering if anyone has any idea 1) what type of blade this might have been or was meant to be? and 2)what the kanji engraving/stamping means.
I vaguely can make out two characters ' 天平 ' which is translates to the Tenpyo / Tenhei, a Japanese Era (my best guess).

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Rusty Blade link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rPu4SUNs-X8_PMGev9ZcaZqXEpDQLuIE/view?usp=sharing
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Vinegered Blade link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1013jfk71Bu8s97_T2MaCNzsOp0fdX4Mu/view?usp=sharing
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Cleaned Up Blade link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/12ATZN9GnfjAcV4MAGdn9492oKs2t3Jm6/view?usp=sharing
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Kanji on Blade link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wECSrheFpqmxGUxWLzHLUiVwvvTLFgBV/view?usp=sharing
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Reverse of Kanji link - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gzQwbAwfU1oIDqXJ0BkuRiXhnc66idiH/view?usp=sharing



Thank you if anyone has any idea / leads.
 
"登録" (registered) in Pre-WW2 right-to-left style. It could be just a "style" on a post-war product, though.
I can't really read the 4th kanji but suppose it's "正" and it's the last one, "天平常正" but I couldn't find any matching trademark with that; the trademark "常正"(tsunemasa) by Yamada Hamono Tokyo co, ltd. is registered in 1972 but expired recently (has long been out of business perhaps?). Maybe my guess wasn't good on this or maybe the "trademark" was expired long before the online search system. No clue about this, frankly.

Also, for a kitchen knife the stamp is weirdly placed. For katana or other weapon it's quite unnatural not to have a hole, and a real weapon for the army don't really need a registered trademark. A broken soba-kiri, maguro-bocho or other large special purpose knife, or maybe some kind of carpentry/farm tool?

Anyway, it is indeed a unique and mystery find, but at least not a 1200-year-old super valuable rare blade or anything I guess.
 
I have a general question concerning the "登録" (registered) markings. I find this on many knives and chisels. Sometimes, it is even the only Kanji on the blade.
What does it mean...registered to what; a maker's guilde, association, etc? Would it be an equivalent to our ®?
 
Thank you so much Roy. Very detailed information. Was not expecting it to be a 1200 year old blade.. but appreciate the input and suggestions.. it has a kind of a double edge sharpened at the end, sort of bayonettey, but not sure if that was just the previous owners' personalized touch or if they came like that. I guess i'll not know till I know.

Thank you again Roy.

Regards!

Hope to post pictures up when I am done restoring it some.
 
These characters: 別製 (Betsu-sei) would mean "specially made".
What does that mean in the context of having it on a kitchen knife?

The only hint I could think of; the fact that the knife itself is completely made out of high carbon steel and differently tempered (honyaki?), I guess those are made on special order?

Please let me know what you think.
 
It does sound like that.
We could put it in the same category as 最上 - "the best" then :)
 
Brontes said:
I need some help interpreting Kanji.
I purchased this knife a while back and am curious about the make and such. 300mm stainless clad Gyuto.
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Thats a Hiromoto AS, very nice knife btw, love the profile. The blacksmith is now retired so there will be no more. The Kanji says Tenmi-Jyuraku
 
Wonderful post, thank you! When I lived in San Francisco I worked with an Asian Art Dealer, who introduced me to the different types of Japanese and Chinese writing systems—all with distinctive qualities.

Since "kanji" is derived from Chinese characters—literal translation is "Han characters." I'd been thinking it would be cool to someday have a custom gyuto inscribed with "seal script," the old form of Chinese characters from the Bronze Age—a time when smelting of metal alloys was first being developed. The look of "seal script" is blunt, crude, naive—quite wonderful. Example below.

EPP8J7w.jpg


Cutty Sharp said:
I take it that only a few members here know more than a few Japanese words - sushi, sashimi, tsunami and the inevitable knife stuff like nakiri, kasumi, sujihiki etc. In fact you probably know more knife words than other words in Japanese! Anyway, despite spending over 2 years in Japan I'm not really that different as I used English at home and work, and it was also more than 10 years ago. I know a bit of Nihon-go, but would like to learn a bit more - especially knife-related these days - and so was wondering if anyone could contribute to a thread on how to decipher a bit of what those etchings on our knives say? (Or stones...? and so on.) Maybe this kind of stuff hasn't been posted much before and could be useful.
:sumo:

First of all, I can contribute this: I'm not sure how many people are actually aware that Japanese traditionally uses 3 different scripts, of which kanji is just one. Sometimes people post things like, 'I can't read kanji.' However, I'm not completely sure if this means that they can read the 2 other main scripts, hiragana and katakana, or not. Probably not, I'd guess.

They're not that tough to tell apart, with a little practice, and they have different roles. Kanji is the most complex-looking one, Chinese characters that began to be used in Japan a couple thousand years ago, for example: 漢字 (kanji), 日本 (Japan), 東京 (Tokyo), 堺市 (Sakai), 重房 (Shigefusa). They're terribly complex and can mean different things, with many/most characters having more than 1 pronunciation, I believe. I only know a few of these - and for good reason as it's an absolute mess. Unfortunately, these are what we usually find on knives, they give the maker's name, and so I try to recognise them a bit.

Hiragana is the best-looking script, I think. It's less complex than kanji and is kind of loopy: ひらがな (hiragana), おさか (Osaka), はもの (hamono). It's generally used phonetically, which makes it way easier to learn, with each character usually representing one Japanese 'sound', such as ひ (hi) ら (ra) が (ga) な (na). Hiragana's used to represent hard kanji and for grammar, etc. You don't really see it on knives, though.

Then there's katakana, the simplest-looking script; straighter lines than hiragana. It's basically always phonetic and matches the Japanese sounds as hiragana usually does too: ナイフ (knife or 'na-i-fu'), キッチェン (kitchen or 'kii-chi-n'). This is the script I learned first as most words recently imported into the Japanese language are written in katakana. Very helpful when doing grocery shopping and reading labels, for example, even if the Japan-ised version of a word is a bit different. (Canned tuna, I remember, isn't called 'tuna' in Japanese but シーチキン or 'shiichikin' - 'sea chicken' - which I always thought was hilarious.)
:chicksign:

(Incidentally, romanji - our roman alphabet - is used quite a lot in Japan. Indo-Arabic numerals - 1,2,3... - are probably more common than their kanji equivalents.)


Here's some useful kanji as an example: 白 is white and 青 is blue, while 一 is 1 and 二 is 2, and so if you see 白 and 二 you can pretty much be sure a knife is shirogami #2. With katakana you might see スウェーデン which is pronounced as 'sue-de-n' and so you know you've got Swedish steel. Or you might see a kanji/katakana combo like 青紙スーパー 鋼 which contains the 'blue' kanji and also the katakana スーパー or 'suu-paa', and so you know you're got Aogami Super steel.

Hope this is interesting/useful. Please post if you have something to add.
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Al mar uses a chouin 彫印　(aka chopmark) on all their outdoor and culinary knives.
But use of seal script for anything other than a seal hasn't been around for thousands of years.
Japanese knife makers seem to follow the established traditional method of marking their blades.
2l0wf5.jpg


There is one outdoor knife maker out of China that uses Seal Script loosely, not in a seal. But as I can't read it I can't look them up.

Might be "cool" but that's really about it. Sort of like if western knifemakers marked their blades in Latin.
 
Hello everyone!

I'm going to take part in this thread with my own knives, which I bought in Japan a few years back. I think they're made by the same maker, both because the kanji looks the same (although one is printed and the other one is chiseled) and because they have the same little design (that little logo that resembles the "TA" kanji with the four squares).

Anyone can help me identify who made these and whatever extra info can be obtained with those

Thanks!

IMG_20190826_121820

IMG_20190826_121820

Got this for vegetables
IMG_20190826_121833

IMG_20190826_121833

Bought this one to use with everything else
 
It's 菊一文字 (Kikuichimonji) . There are several Kikuichimonji (e.g. Kikuichimonji-Norimune) brands in Japan. I think yours are one in Sanjo, Kyoto (there is another Kikuichimonji in Nagasaki sharing the same root, but they don't have "registered" (登録) marks). Kikuichimonji is a well known brand of samurai swords and they used to be a sword smiths.

Here's a link to the official site. http://www.kikuichimonji.com

The logo came from a (Japanese-style) bridle bit, like this https://ec.hirosekaki.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=178
 
ojisan said:
It's 菊一文字 (Kikuichimonji) . There are several Kikuichimonji (e.g. Kikuichimonji-Norimune) brands in Japan.
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It's definitely them! Really appreciate your help! It was very important to me that they were produced in Kyoto because I was born there.

Thanks again!
 
Masatomo said:
It's definitely them! Really appreciate your help! It was very important to me that they were produced in Kyoto because I was born there.

Thanks again!
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Note that their knives are most likely made in Sakai and other areas. I don't think they forge knives themselves now.
 
Oh, I see.. well, fair enough. I'll concentrate on the fact that I bought it in the same shop that I've been seeing since when I was a kid :)
 
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