Bizen Osafune Sword

[Gyakuto]

A sword in the style of the Bizen Osafune school. The sword smith was Ju Yokoyama Sukenaga, forged in 1840. The jihada is a very fine mujihada that requires great skill to create. The hamon is kanemoto and the sword has a shallow sori characteristic of the Bizen school.

 

[Gyakuto]

Oh, I should say I bought it last Monday from an antique armaments dealer in Brighton!

 

[Steve]

Oh, I should say I bought it last Monday from an antique armaments dealer in Brighton!

Looks like a great chopper. Are you going to post some melon/water bottle videos?

 

[dunc]

Beautiful!!
So amazing to be able to steward a piece of history like this

 

[Gyakuto]

Beautiful!!

Thank you Dunc. The fittings are really interesting and unusual.too. I’ll take photos soon.

So amazing to be able to steward a piece of history like this

That is how I feel about having it in my possession: it’s custodian.

It rather sad how many Japanese swords, armour and pole arms ended up in England. When the Samurai were abolished in 1868 they had to give up their swords. Many wealthy aristocrats claimed many of them and bought armour and other weapons for tiny amounts of money from the destitute samurai. They shipped them back to the England to make talking points and displays in their stately homes and in museums. Over the years the aristocracy have themselves become destitute and had to sell their ancestral homes and contents. The grandfather and later, father, of the dealer from whom I bought the sword would go around the country to these ancestral homes and buy up any swords, pole arms, firearms, and sets of armour to sell to the public. The current owner says many valuable sword blades were often discarded and the ornate sword guards kept as they were easier to display! Sets of Japanese armour were sometimes burned atop bonfires for Guy Fawkes night as they were too unwieldy to keep in the aristocrats new London homes! I was really saddened to think what might’ve been lost to this historical vandalism. Thus my new sword has been in England since 1870.

It does slightly worry me that this sword likely killed a few people while in the possession of it’s samurai owner. I put this to the dealer and he said he thinks of the lives these weapons saved. I have thought about incanting a Buddhist sutra/Shinto norito over it but…I’d feel silly!