After seeing a couple of very high quality Type 3 gunto, including the koshirae, I got to re-reading Nick Komiya & Chris Bowen’s dicussion of the origins of the Type 3 (http://www.warrelics…version-584796/). The predominent thought is that it was designed as a more durable (koshirae) gunto that was also cheaper than the average standard Type 94/98. But almost every one I’ve seen have really good looking blades (mine included) and a couple of them now, (one owned by IJASWORDS) have REALLY high quality upgrades to the koshirae.

Any thoughts about WHY the Type 3s have such nice blades if they were originally designed to be cheap?

On another note, I think it was Komiya-san who was interested in seeing any Type 3s date prior to 1942. There were 2 posted recently. I don’t remember who had them, exactly, but I’m trying to back-track, to get them.