I don't think it's wire, but flat sheet?...hard to tell; it could be fine wire from an electric motor (a good material I see on African work; you can tell it for sure if they didn't remove the distinct half clear half red lacquery stuff electric motors coil thingies are at least often coated in; but that stuff ain't here; just brown patina, it looks like.). The long (belt?) hook on the sheath is cool.
Some might consider the sword rather similar, but I'm with you, F, and would like to elucidate. The tip is very different from the broad style of ilwoon-seme (like it?), as you say, not only in its narrow thrusting angle vs their roundish slashing (in European terms "Roman" style) tip, but also in the tip not being a widened, flattened cutting-plane; your Shi sword is basically parallell sided (except the very base), and is it sharp the whole parallel part? Just predicty-hoping
It is more a "true" cut and thrust sword, the seme more a cutting sword (a la ilwoon) with a tip that can be used for thrusting on unarmoured oponants, but ain't the greatest for it, and is more for doing a passing type cut I call tip-slashing, at which machete and seme excell, and ilwoon just makes me tear up when I see it and it's so pricey.....I could see the seme being somewhat a transitional/whatever in between sword at the edge of ilwoon(etc.) and also at the edge of true cut and thrust swords, like the Shi sword, or 'Zande broadswords, etc. Not one bit of this idea so far has really been turned toward accounting for the handles or the exact regionality/tribality/overlap of the types (broadsword and ilwoonish). This is a vague idea based on swords more than cultural geography or history, but I'm rather excited about it; please feel free to help me sew it up and fly it, or shoot holes in the wings if ye must
I'm loving talking about African cutting swords; really excites me.