WWII Late War Japanese Army Type 95 Nagoya Arsenal NCO Shin-Gunto Sword

A World War II Type 95 Japanese Army NCO sword on which the sword blade and scabbard have matching serial numbers of “211714”. The position of the number on the blade, configured to be read with the cutting edge up, identifies the sword as having been produced by the Nagoya Arsenal (The only other source for the Type 95 sword was the Tokyo arsenal, which impressed the number on the blade in such a way that it is read with the cutting edge facing down). The machine-made blade is 26 inches long. The blade is generally  bright and, while there are some scratches, gray areas, and spots, there are no cracks or rust. The blade does have four very tiny nicks, evenly spaced in the center of the cutting edge. The overall length is approximately 38 inches in the scabbard. The handle of the sword utilized the cross-hatched wood grips that appeared late in the war to replace the metal grips. The fuchi collar at the base of the grip is also a late war version in iron and is therefore without the arsenal inspection stamps found on earlier examples which utilized a copper collar. The scabbard exhibits about 70% of its original olive brown paint and displays one shallow dent. The tsuba is the plain style utilized on NCO swords.