Does anyone here read Japanese writing? We have inherited a fine piece, which I believe is a Japanese tantō blade with a wooden handle and sheath. The sheath has characters written by hand in what looks like graphite. We are curious about the writing, as well as the blade and sheath. I can share some photos. Thx
By all means, post some pics of the writing. I’m a (very, very) beginner at reading Japanese, but I’d be interested in trying to figure it out. And I’m sure there are other Dopers who are much better at it, and can tell us how wrong I get it.
I have two daughters who read Japanese. If you post pictures, I can ask them tomorrow.
Go ahead and post the pictures.
Thanks for the replies! Here are the photos on imgur (click to see them all):
Some of the writing is hard to photograph with my smart phone - if these are not legible, I will try to take better photos.
You can use Google translate with your phone camera. I was in Japan for 6 weeks earlier this year and used it extensively months n menus and signs.
I tried that, but it did not work. There was not enough contrast between the wood and the writing - it would not pick up the characters. Maybe with better lighting, I may try again.
It’s difficult for me to distinguish most of the characters because of the lack of contrast, and in at least some of the photos, the characters appear to be upside down. The bottom photo seems the best, so I copied it and turned it right side up, and I could see most of the characters. Unfortunately, I’m only familiar with one or two, and the difficulty in distinguishing details means I would not be able to look them up.
" My parents went to Tokyo and all I got was this seppuku knife"
LOL 
Thanks for that!
@Roderick_Femm, yeah not knowing how to read these I probably have them upside-down.
I should add the blade has no markings. I suspect there may be something on the tang (is that what it’s called?) under the handle, but I do not want to wreck the thing just to see what’s there.
That’s where the meaningful writing will be. The hilt is generally designed to be (relatively) easily removable.
A colleague of mine runs a gallery in Seattle that specializes in identifying old Japanese swords and other items, as well as buying and selling them on consignment. PM me for contact info.
(ETA: As I understand it, writing on the visible part of the blade itself would be code for “cheap replica bought on the Home Shopping Network”…)
Isn’t it just the guy’s name and address? Something like 所有者瀬戸市東町…
I asked my daughter to take a look at it. She said she could make out the symbol for “house number” and one for “5” and suspects DPRK is correct.
The daughter who does translation sometimes says, “I get a general place name vibe.
I can make out characters that might be
？有者？戸市東？町土
Which doesn’t parse to anything for me.”
She also suggests that if you’re on Reddit, “r/translator can be pretty quick at small Japanese requests.”
And she wishes you good luck!
Google Translate says it means:
Google Translate says it means:
I’m having better luck finding the characters in traditional Chinese than in my usual Japanese kanji resources, but I’m also getting it basically as an identifier and address.
In the course of my own efforts to translate it, Google Translate has also given me the rather more ominous, “There is a corpse in Higashi Town”. It’s a work in progress.
(But now I want a mystery story that starts with that cryptic message on a sword found in an antique shop.)
I’ve just shown it to second daughter, and she said, “Well, it’s upside down…” Then, after turning my phone upside down, she said she sees the words city, east, town, and the number nine. She agrees that it seems to be an address.
Maybe that’s what happens to you if you don’t give it back to the owner. 
Slightly off topic…
The fuller and the false edge make me wonder if that blade didn’t start it’s life as a sword.
Technically (IIUC) not a tantō because it doesn’t have a guard, so, an aikuchi. Storing blades in their ‘battle dress’ is frowned on and that really looks like a ‘white scabbard’, a shirasaya (白鞘).
Azuma-chou 東町 （あずまちょう）in Seto-shi 瀬戸市 Seto City in Aichi Prefecture.
東 east is usually read as higashi, when used by itself, and tō when used in compound words such as 東北 northeast, tōhoku, but 東 is pronouced Azuma in names.
Wiki says that Azuma-chou was established in 1942 and Seto-shi was established as a city in 1929.
sheath in Japanese is 鞘（さや）saya and a wooden sheath for a tantō is 短刀木材鞘.
That would be the perfect person to contact.
If you find out more information, please let us know.