Under the United States occupation at the end of World War II all armed forces in occupied Japan were disbanded and production of Japanese swords with edges was banned except under police or government permit. The ban was overturned through a personal appeal by Dr. Junji Honma. During a meeting with General Douglas MacArthur, Honma produced blades from the various periods of Japanese history and MacArthur was able to identify very quickly what blades held artistic merit and which could be considered purely weapons. As a result of this meeting, the ban was amended so that guntō weapons would be destroyed while swords of artistic merit could be owned and preserved. Even so, many Japanese swords were sold to American soldiers at a bargain price; in 1958 there were more Japanese swords in America than in Japan. The vast majority of these one million or more swords were guntō, but there were still a sizable number of older swords.
Under the United States occupation at the end of World War II all armed forces in occupied Japan were disbanded and production of Japanese swords with edges was banned except under police or government permit The ban was overturned through a personal appeal by Dr Junji Honma During a meeting with General Douglas MacArthur Honma produced blades from the various periods of Japanese history and MacArthur was able to identify very quickly what blades held artistic merit and which could be considered purely weapons As a result of this meeting the ban was amended so that guntō weapons would be destroyed while swords of artistic merit could be owned and preserved Even so many Japanese swords were sold to American soldiers at a bargain price; in 1958 there were more Japanese swords in America than in Japan The vast majority of these one million or more swords were guntō but there were still a sizable number of older swords