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Authentic Wwii Japanese Nco Sword?


Corry

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Hi all,

 

I am a newbie to collecting WWII Japanese swords. I just purchased my first one and want the opinion of some that are more knowledgeable than myself. There are some excellent reproductions out there and I want to make sure. I purchased the NCO sword in the pictures from ebay (I know a dangerous place for a newbie) for US $800. I think a bit on the high side, but am OK with the price as long as it checks out. The seller was located in the US and seemed legit and the details on the sword and scabbard look fine. What do you think? Thanks in advance!

 

 

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Corry, nice going for a first shot off eBay! I've gotten about a third of mine from there, but there are some real clunkers out there!

 

Sword was made by Ījima Tōken Seisakusho (left stamp); Inspected by Tokyo First Army Arsenal (center stamp) for the Tokyo Kokura Army Arsenal (right stamp). Likely year - 1939-41ish.

 

Great place to learn about these: http://ohmura-study.net/957.html#6

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Thank you all for helping me out on this! I picked up, "Military Swords od Japan," by Fuller and Gregory and it has a lot of good info. Since I may be purchasing more swords down the road; Is there anywhere that I can find a serial number index that gives year produced etc? I haven't been able to find one in the book or online. 

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Fuller & Gregory has one on page 84, that shows which arsenal supervised each serial number group. I've never seen a list that shows the manufacturing progress for each plant by serial number. I'll attach some charts provided for years 1944, 45, from Nick Komiya at Warrelics, but they're in Japanese. Word on the street is that they were making 3,000 Type 95s per month! The copper handled guntos were made in a one year span from 1937 to 1938, then the aluminum handles started. Wooden handles begining in the 200,000 and 300,000 range began roughly in 1944 to 1945. So, between 1938 and 1944 (6 years) all the aluminum handled serial numbers were cranked out, and not necessarily sequentially, since number blocks were portioned out to the various arsenals.

 

So you can do some very rough mental math, and say what you like about a serial number in the 45,000 range, but I'd say 1940ish???

 

Someone with more expertise PLEASE stop me!!!

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  • 1 year later...

Hi Corry - 

Good stuff.  The Fuller & Gregory reference is decent, but you will hear a lot of learned collectors on this forum make reference to Jim Dawson's book,  "Swords of Imperial Japan - 1868 - 1945."   It's not cheap, but I found it to be well worth the investment.   There are two chapters in the book that focus specifically on NCO swords, and the information is extremely well laid out - - reading Dawson's makes me MUCH more comfortable swimming with the ebay sharks, and as someone once warned me about ebay in this way:  "You have to be comfortable swimming with the sharks, or get out of the water! "  :)

 

Dan 

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I'll just add since this thread has been raised; there are some very good Polish reproduction swords that are being aged and sold as genuine. They are all Ijima and can be identified, though it is admittedly difficult in some cases. One good sign is paint on the fuchi and spring clip.

 

Now, Iijima is probably the second most prevalent manufacturer, so please don't get the idea that most of them are fakes. The whole myth regarding the prevalence of fakes is spread only by canny merchants with something to gain. Most from the US are genuine.

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