Chinese/Japanese characters on sword rack

[lonny tao]

This rack for samourai swords has Chinese/Japanese characters on the front.

Anybody can tell me what these characters are saying?

Thanks.

Lonny

[drencrom]

镇它之宝

"It's really a treasure"

[imron]

镇宅之宝 - a treasure for protecting the home (from bad luck, evil spirits, etc).

[lonny tao]

Thanks fore these answers.

These answers are not 100% the same, but both answers are good?

If possible, I like to know what character 1-2-3 means, character 4 means treasure, I found that on internet

The others I couldn`t find it.

[skylee]

#3 is good. #2 is not. Use this tool to learn what each character means. (Those are simplified Chinese characters.)

[lonny tao]

I was already looking on mdbg.net to find these characters.

I found character 2 and 4,, simply by typing the words home and treasure.

But the others I couldn`t find.

But I don`t mind, I like the rack, its fore sale and I am going to buy it this week.

Thanks for all the answers.

Lonny.

[imron]

镇 means to suppress (in this case evil spirits, bad luck)

宅 means home/place of residence

镇宅 together means to remove evil sprits/bad luck from the home.

之 doesn't have a directly translatable meaning here, but it indicates that the noun following it (宝) is the thing that performs the action preceding it (镇宅).

宝 - treasure

So it means a treasure (refering to the swords that would go in the rack) that helps keep evil spirits/bad luck away from the home. If you're inclined to believe such superstitions, there are probably a whole bunch of related ones about the placement of the rack in the home and the types of swords that should go on it, and not putting it in the right place or having the wrong types of swords will possibly have the supposed opposite effect.

[lonny tao]

This is the information I was looking for, thanks!

I need this rack because I have three swords, katana and wakizashi, to give a place.

I am not a fan of text/pictures on sword racks but this rack is the only model I like that Is fore sale here.

But the texst is not so bad, a treasure to protection the home is nice.

And I can always paint the rack so that the characters are removed.

But first I must have it, I order it already.

Thanks for your reply.

Lonny