What is this?

[Mag]

Hi, I recently got this strange sword or whatever you may call it, I think it may have been some kind of sword cane blade or similiar, there is no saya with this one, I think this is also the reason of the bad condition of the blade, there is quite some rust and pitting in some spots, one side more and one side a bit better. The former owner already tried to clean it up a bit but sure got things only worse.

 

Cutting edge length is around 47,5cm, width at habaki 16mm, so quite small but very thick with 7mm at habaki.

 

There is a hamon to be seen very clearly, this is what made me courious about this piece, my friend who gave it to me wanted to almost scrap it (he found it during an old house cleaning) but i told him to give it to me to check it out.

 

The grip is made of wood with some kind of bark around it, looks very realistic, i remember to have seen a yari saya on here which looked almost identical. All other fittings are brass. I can see no way of removing the blade from the grip/tsuka, no mekugi to be seen.

 

Any ideas on age or a way to take the blade off to maybe see a mei? Or is it just tourist junk?

 

Many thanks, Magnus B.

[cabowen]

Yes, it was/is a sword cane. Usually these are junk but sometimes you can be surprised. If you can get the handle off, you might want to see if it is signed.

[hxv]

Magnus,

 

It's a Japanese sword cane, Shikomizue. Typically, the blades in these mountings are not high quality, but there are always exceptions to the rule. I would remove the handle to look at the tang. The hamon is visible in the pictures, but I can't see the hada because of the deep scratches. It's too bad the scabbard is missing.

 

EDIT: Chris beat me to it!

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[Mag]

Ok, so we just need to figure out how to remove the grip, anyone? don´t want to destroy it! Is there a time span on which things like these were produced? Any pic´s of a complete example to see how the saya would have looked like?

 

It sure is bad that the saya is missing but it´s luck for me, with the saya it would not be legal to own and sure would have been scrapped already!

 

 

Thanks!

 

 

Greetings, Magnus B.

[cabowen]

It may be held on with pine pitch. It may screw into the fitting at the top of the handle. Or there may be a hidden peg. You will have to experiment a bit.

 

These were popular in Meiji when the wearing of swords was outlawed.