1899 Japanese Cavalry Sword and Scabbard

[Daniel Bellew]

Hi all,

I'm looking into collecting ww2 Japanese items,i usually stick to German so i know nothing about the price ect of Japanese items.I have come across a 1899 Japanese Cavalry Sword and Scabbard For $550 NZ$,I believe these where used in ww2?.If someone in the know could have a look at the pictures and give me some advice on this one that would be great cheers Dan

[Bruce Pennington]

Daniel,

Called the Type 32, it was made from 1899 to 1926 and was used all the way through to the end of WWII. Two styles, the "Ko" and "Otsu" - Ko was 39" long and made for cavalry; the Otsu was 36" long and designed for artillery and other NCO's on foot. You can read about them here: Non-Commissioned officers Gunto 1889 (Type 32 GuntM)

Prices, as you might imagine vary from time to time and location, but roughly go for $400 USD.

[Nick Komiya]

That Type 32 sword design was superceded by the Japanese style designs introduced for officers and NCOs in the mid 1930s, so they were no longer typical by WW2. Those sabre style swords only had coarse blades added by grinding with files and were found to be useless against heavily padded winter jackets worn by the Chinese in the Manchurian Incident of 1931/33. Thus sabre style was dropped and they switched to sharper blades wielded in a more powerful two-handed grip in samurai sword style, which became the mainstream for WW2.