Japanese nco sword from ww2

[pereirafl]

Hi everybody!

I'm in a real dilemma and I hope you can help me out!
I found an nco sword in pretty good shape, with a reasonable price, whose owner looks reliable but knows almost nothing about how his dead father got it.
I made some research in foruns and the sword matches the great majority of points regarding its autenticity, except by two: has a brass tsuka and the serial number in the blade is upside down. There is any chance that it can be original or it is simply a fake?
Hope you can help me in order to give the owner an answer, if I'll buy it or not.....

Kind regards,

Felipe

[Adrian]

Moved to the Japanese forum.

[Andrew]

from what i can tell . it looks like an early NCO sword. when you draw the blade to look at the numbers, the edge would be facing up. the numbers are not really up side down. but i am told that they can be found the other way around too on later NCO's.
andrew

[pereirafl]

from what i can tell . it looks like an early NCO sword. when you draw the blade to look at the numbers, the edge would be facing up. the numbers are not really up side down. but i am told that they can be found the other way around too on later NCO's.
andrew

Thanks andrew!
What about the tsuka? In the foruns we always read that only copper, aluminum or wood were used to make the handles... Just another day I found a trusted forum of a prototype nco whose tsuka was made of metal or brass, can't tell for sure...

[Andrew]

you are right about the handle materials, i thought it was copper colored to my eyes before. after looking closer at it, the handle does resemble the chinese made nco swords being sold on ebay as real ww2 swords. better detail pictures would help. the chinese ones i have seen usually have an ugly green scabbard. any traces of that on the one you are looking at ?
andrew

[pereirafl]

you are right about the handle materials, i thought it was copper colored to my eyes before. after looking closer at it, the handle does resemble the chinese made nco swords being sold on ebay as real ww2 swords. better detail pictures would help. the chinese ones i have seen usually have an ugly green scabbard. any traces of that on the one you are looking at ?
andrew

Dear andrew,

Any chance that a small amount of early nco (as you said before) were released with metal or brass tsuka? According to the owner, this sword belongs to his family for far more than 10 years. How long does china makes fake NCOs? I saw some replicas and none of them had the aspect of this one....they really look like fake, in contrary to this one. He's going to send a closer picture of the details/marks close to the tsuba. As soon as I receive it, I'll post it here. Maybe it can help us...
Another doubt: coincident serial number of the blade and the saya can be also negative in the matter of its autenticity?
Kind regards,

Felipe

[Alan M]

Hi Felipe and welcome to the forum , that is a very nice authentic NCO sword , with no problems

[pereirafl]

Thanks for the words alan! Deep inside I really want it to be authetic, that the brass tsuka could be part of an early release os NCOs sword, but I'm afraid to spent money in something that may be fake

[TrondK]

I like this sword, have always wanted some Japanese steel in my collection.
Congrats with this one, i hope it is genuine.

Thanks for sharing

[pereirafl]

you are right about the handle materials, i thought it was copper colored to my eyes before. after looking closer at it, the handle does resemble the chinese made nco swords being sold on ebay as real ww2 swords. better detail pictures would help. the chinese ones i have seen usually have an ugly green scabbard. any traces of that on the one you are looking at ?
andrew

Have you seen this link andrew?

http://collectorsmilitaria.com/a_ver...ord_062612.htm

and the discussion...

http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/viewt...p?f=50&t=13229

any clue?

I hope I'm not been borring, I just want be be sure that I not missing something special thinking that it's fake...