Reddit mentions of Swords of Imperial Japan , 1868 - 1945

> Did the original flag stamp have the words tennō (天皇, emperor) below it? It seems like a strange thing to put on a blade.

Yes… again, if I recall correctly. I'd like to track this thing down and confirm but it's hard to find given all the fakes. Maybe it's in Dawson… I'll have to take a look later.

> It also strikes me as strange that the date (Shōwa 17, 昭和十七年) and name (Oda Ichirō, 小田一郎) are in that location.

Yeah. Mei on the blade is common in fakes and almost never done in genuine blades. I used to say absolutely never, but it's dangerous to be absolute; I recently learned that Kaifu-school blades were sometimes signed on the blade instead of the nakago. Weird.