This is a very good example with nice, light colored wood grips showing good finish, and good definition and no chipping to the finger grooves of the grip, which has strong “US” stamp on one side near the iron socket and cross guard, which have bright metal mixed with some gray age spots. The blade is flat, wide, with one cutting edge and one edge turned at a right angle for scraping away hard soil. The metal is bright overall though showing a some gray spotting forward on the face of the cutting edge and on the reverse of the turned edge.

The scabbard is the standard form, made of leather covered corrugated tin with the brass throat riveted in place and bearing a iron staple of the reverse for a carrying ring or leather look now missing. The surface is dark brown, showing some wrinkling, pressure dents and scratches from use and wear but only couple small spots of finish loss, and still shows a very clear “US” stamp on the upper left of the front side, near the narrow brass throat.

The “Ordnance Entrenching Tool,” or “Ordnance Infantry Entrenching Tool,” was a competitor with the trowel bayonet for adoption by the army, which was trying to adapt its equipment to different environments and to changing tactical doctrines as the age of the short-range muzzle-loader gave way to longer range and more rapid fire weapons, leading to the increased use of improvised field works and rifle pits. Although usually designated the Model 1873, design of the entrenching tool was not actually finalized until March 1874, when 10,000 were ordered to be produced at Springfield, and the design for the scabbard was not finally approved and adopted until March 1875. They outlasted the trowel bayonet, production of which ceased in 1874, and was only officially replaced by redesignation of the 1880 knife as an entrenching tool in the early 1890s, though it is reportedly spotted still in occasional, later photographs of some national guard troops, etc.  [sr] [ph:L]

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