to clean or not to clean my shin gunto type 95

[lkoester78]

i have a shin gunto type 95 , it appears to be a early model, my great uncle brought it home from the pacific theater ww2 , it has years of dust accumulated on it and some material on the blade im not sure if it is rust or dried blood . im not a collector so im not sure if it is safe to clean it or should i leave it be ? i do not want to hurt the value any info would be helpful. any ideas on value would also be great all numbers match the blade locks firmly into the saya its only true charcter is a bullet hole in the handle no doubt that is directly realted to why the original owner "gave" it to my uncle (my uncle killed the previous owner in battle) i am considering selling it

 

this should be the link for pics :

[SwordGuyJoe]

Need to see photos to help you on value.

[lkoester78]

Need to see photos to help you on value.

thanks for the quick response joe im having problems uploading pics it keeps giving me error messages but ill keep working on it

[J Reid]

Usually you can fetch like 500-900 depending on condition.

 

 

regards,

Josh

[drdata]

My advice is to only deal with active red rust. If you plan to resell, the new owner can always clean, if that suits them. Once cleaned, you may find not as much interest from higher end collectors.

 

Do not clean the tang. Only light oil on blade. Please nothing abrasive on the blade.

 

Cheers

[lkoester78]

My advice is to only deal with active red rust. If you plan to resell, the new owner can always clean, if that suits them. Once cleaned, you may find not as much interest from higher end collectors.

 

Do not clean the tang. Only light oil on blade. Please nothing abrasive on the blade.

 

Cheers

thank you for the great advice upon further inspection i realize that it is actually a packing grease on the blade possibly cosmoline i am gonna list it on ebay and see what happens i think leaving it for the purchaser to clean is a great idea

[bmoore1322]

Remember after you clean the cosmoline off the blade, do not put it back into the says, as the inside walls of it is probably covered in cosmoline also, and you will be putting it back on the blade what you have cleaned off already.

 

Brian