Dating this Type 38----Photo Added

[krinko]

I recently traded into a very nice Type 38 rifle and have toured the boards reading up on the "Read This First" kind of post.

Even so, I am getting conflicting information as to the possible date of production----as much as it can be narrowed down, anyway.

The rifle is Koishikawa production, without a series marker, serial number 1,909,501.

The table that is reproduced on several boards gives a production termination date of ca.1935 for the 2,000,000+ rifles in this original group...so I was thinking 1934-35 for my rifle, based on the serial number.

A friend of mine says it's more like 1918 production...and he's usually right about this kind of thing.

So is the table wrong?

-----krinko

[PeterN2]

I am not sure of the production date though I would go with late 1920s/early 30s. I suppose it depends on the rate of production per year from when introduced 1905 as to when they got to 1.9 million. If we knew that we would have the answer.

I looked at a similar rifle last week numbered in the 1.9 million range.

Regards

Peter.

[riceone]

That is a pretty rifle. I like the rifles with the reddish finish. According to Duncan McCollum's book your rifle was probably made around 1935. riceone.