Maureen Mollineaux holds an antique Japanese sword that her father said he obtained on Sept. 2, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered about the USS Missouri. Mollineaux took the sword to a recent taping of 'Antiques Roadshow' to learn more about it. (Damon Higgins / Palm Beach Post)

Every family has a secret history. Sometimes they even have the artifacts to go with it. In the McJury family, the artifact was always the sword.

Ralph Worthington McJury – most people called him "Mack" – was a captain in Army intelligence during WWII and Korea. He told his kids that he was on the battleship Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered.

All the Japanese officers came forward and laid down their swords, and the American officers were allowed their choice. Mack didn’t know which one to take, but a friend of his who knew something about swords and said, "That’s the one."

That was the story Mack McJury told, but, in the nicest way possible, his kids let you know that he told a lot of stories, as people will. His children know he was indeed in Army intelligence, helped plan the invasion of Okinawa and taught radar at Camp Murphy, which is now Jonathan Dickinson State Park – they have documents to prove all that. But his presence on the Missouri, and the provenance of the sword itself have been impossible to verify.

After the war, Mack started a business: Graphic Instant Press in West Palm Beach. For the rest of his life – he died in 1985 – the sword was one of the most precious possessions in the McJury family. The parents were a trifle concerned about it, as well they should have been. The possibilities of three rambunctious children and a genuinely nasty piece of steel forced them to keep hiding the sword around the house as if it was in the witness protection program.

After Mack died, and his wife came to live with their daughter Maureen, she brought the sword with her. Maureen had boys of her own by that time, so she had to keep the sword hidden just as her parents did.

Then as now, the sword is outwardly unprepossessing – the scabbard is ordinary, and under the leather grip is a pebbled surface of either bone or ivory. It’s not a ceremonial sword, it’s a working sword, a soldier’s sword.

But unsheath it and the sword is scary, the steel heavy and gleaming, the edge frighteningly sharp. You could shave with this sword. A half-swing from an arthritic old man could lop off an arm; a full swing, a head.

Recently, Maureen Mollineaux and her brother Mike McJury had an expert at the Morikami look at the sword. After removing the grip, he examined the steel beneath, where the swordmaker signed his work. He told them the swordmaker was named Kunimichi, and he made the sword in 1661 in the province of Yamashiro. The family for whom the sword was made was named Fugiwara.

With that information, Maureen and her brother finally decided they needed to know what the sword was worth. Not only that, they decided that the right thing to do would be to return the sword to its rightful owners.

Now, there were provisos here. After the war, America was flooded with Japanese swords, because weapons that aren’t museum quality are forbidden to be in private hands in Japan. (Swords that are museum quality have to be licensed.) Even now, most swords, even good ones, from the 17th century, are priced online around $6,000.

Still, Mollineaux and her brother thought it would be good to return the sword to its rightful owners. "It could be a big karmic deal," says Mike McJury, a Palm Beach County firefighter.

On Saturday, Maureen Mollineaux traipsed down to Miami to a taping of the PBS TV show Antiques Roadshow, where an expert looked at the sword.

This is what she learned.

"Very few Japanese swords more recent than the 13th century are worth much," the appraiser told her. "It’s a good sword, but it’s only worth about $800."

"He wasn’t all that impressed," says Mollineaux. "He kind of dismissed it."

And what about repatriating the sword to the original owners?

"That would be such a dishonor," said the appraiser. "The family would lose face."

The story about the battleship Missouri? The appraiser dismissed it as hearsay; without provenance, stories just don’t matter.

So now the Mollineauxes know what the sword is worth, at least in the world’s terms. For the rest of it, Mack McJury’s secret history remains secret.