The first Nambu, the Type A, was completed in 1902. This version was never adopted, but some were sold to China and Siam. The Type B was adopted by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Royal Thai Army during the 1920s, and the later Type 14 was adopted in 1926 (Taishō 14) as the service pistol of the Imperial Japanese Army until its surrender in 1945. Nambu pistols were symbols of prestige, often carried in fanciful holsters, and were used more as a means of ornament and status rather than actual combative purposes. Japan produced about 400,000 Nambu pistols over the course of the war, whereas in this same time period the United States had made over a million M1911 pistols.