Showa 18.6 Type 14 Photos

I got this 18.6 dated Toriimatsu factory first series pistol in August, 2004. A friend saw it for sale at a gun show in Edmonton along with an 11.1 Kokubunji Type 14, a 19.11 Toriimatsu second series Type 14, a JMCH Type IV holster, RCBS 8mm Nambu dies and some brass and bullets for an attractive price. The guy didn’t sell it so I contacted him and then drove up to Edmonton the next day and bought the whole lot. It is all matching including the magazine. By the time this pistol was made they didn’t generally serialize strikers and striker guides, but this one has the correct serialized striker and guide.

This is the left side. Unlike most Type 14s, this one doesn’t have an arc in the left grip panel from swinging the safety lever too far clockwise. There is just a tiny mark at the top of the grip from where it stopped. The external condition of this one is fairly good with just very light pitting, but the bore isn’t as good as the 11.1 I bought at the same time. It’s not bad, but it has some light pitting near the muzzle.

The first marking in the top row identifies the pistol as a product of Nagoya Arsenal. It had to be the Toriimatsu factory as this was the only Nagoya Arsenal factory making pistols at the time this one was made (Chuo Kogyo, a private company, was making them, too, but theirs had an extra character after the Nagoya symbol). The little mark that looks like an upside down y in a circle indicates that this is from the first series. The Japanese wanted five-digit serial numbers so when one set was used up they started again with a Japanese katakana symbol in a circle. Pistol production never got beyond a second series at any producer (using up the Japanese equivalent of A and B), but rifle production went through the whole Japanese syllabary (“alphabet”). The second row shows the date as Showa 18.6, i.e. June, 1943. There is a small inspection symbol (na as in Nagoya) just below the 6. Note the small numbers in the date, and the much sharper, more angular style of the character Sho before the date as compared to the Kokubunji pistols (see the photo gallery for my 11.1, 15.11 and 15.12, for example).

Toriimatsu first series pistols as well as the first 8,000 or so second seriesones had the older, grooved style of cocking knob, which was replaced in January, 1944 by a knurled one.

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Last updated: August 21, 2004. All contents are copyright Teri unless otherwise specified and may not be used elsewhere in any form without prior permission.