Japanese Bayonet Markings......?

[Retired Sarge]

The following are markings that are on a WWII Japanese Type 30 bayonet (Training or School bayonet). These markings are branded into the wooden scales/handles.

I've never been able to translate, let alone make sense of the characters. Let alone tell what is the correct orientation. The smaller one is harder to make sense of and get a good picture of due to the wood grain.

I figured with the fact we have a member, Yang Hao, that has been knocking out the translation of a lot of Japanese and Chinese stuff, that maybe it was time to see if I could get these markings translated.

 

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[Yang Hao]

The first character looks to be 津 jin (chinese pinyin). In chinese it has many meanings as for example 天津 tianjin city, and it means port,harbor and some other meanings.

It could be a place name in Japanese as well for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsu,_Mie

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/津#Japanese

the above link a wiki about that character.

 

[Yang Hao]

The next photos look to be the character 補 bu. In chinese 補 bu means to mend or patch. as for the character beside bu it is difficult to see from the photos provided. As a total guess, it kind of looks like 天 tian (sky/heaven) or 矢 shi (arrow) it's not clear... it could even look like 央 yang (center). These are just guesses I hope this will help you find your answers.

 

[Retired Sarge]

The next photos look to be the character 補 bu. In chinese 補 bu means to mend or patch. as for the character beside bu it is difficult to see from the photos provided. As a total guess, it kind of looks like 天 tian (sky/heaven) or 矢 shi (arrow) it's not clear... it could even look like 央 yang (center). These are just guesses I hope this will help you find your answers.

True the characters are hard to photograph and then throw in the wood grain and scratches and it's next to impossible. I've got a rifle that has Arabic Script on the buttplate, but they are so worn they look like scratches, no matter how I photograph them you can't see them.

Thank you for the assistance and sorry for the delay in getting back to you and this post.......

 

[NOLA_Ken]

True the characters are hard to photograph and then throw in the wood grain and scratches and it's next to impossible. I've got a rifle that has Arabic Script on the buttplate, but they are so worn they look like scratches, no matter how I photograph them you can't see them.

Thank you for the assistance and sorry for the delay in getting back to you and this post.......

Have you tried putting a bit of talc in the markings to try and get them to stand out a bit better?

 

[Retired Sarge]

Have you tried putting a bit of talc in the markings to try and get them to stand out a bit better?

I'll dig it out and give it a shot, and if it works I'll post back with updated pictures.