WWII machine made?

[ShawnP]

i inherited this 20 years ago as a teen, can anyone identify this as an actual WWII machine made piece. From my observation it looks as if it was "cleaned up", the blade looks as if some one tried to sharpen it some how and the sheeth was bent and almost in 2 when i got it, its original color was army green and was missing the wrapping on the handle. i tried years ago to do a search for the "h" shaped marking but could not find anything resembling this.

 

[pgsmith]

Hi Shawn,
It has definitely been abused and then "cleaned up" with sandpaper. That makes it harder to identify. You need to remove the handle and take pictures of the tang. Machine made (and some hand made) WWII blades usually had an arsenal stamp on the tang. Don't clean up any rust that may be on the tang. It is used to gauge the age of the sword.

Here's a link that you may find interesting. Rich Stein has amassed a lot of information about Japanese swords and collecting, with an entire section devoted to military swords ... Japanese Sword Guide

 

[ShawnP]

it took some time but this is what i found




there was a lot of crud embedded in the symbol so i had to kind of wipe it off a bit, it was very hard to see since you said not to remove the rust.