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Item Description
A fine and robust Scottish basket hilted sword dating to the period preceding the last Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. The sword is a fine example of the Scottish armourers’ craft, the hilt being forged from finely rounded structural bars and pierced plates. The aperture of the basket guard is wider on one side showing that the guard was deliberately forged for a right handed user. The single edged blade is a finely forged Solingen made example with a single fuller running underneath the spine.
The fully developed basket guard is finely forged into an elegantly contoured profile. The two main frontal guard panels are decorated in traditional style, with vertical and horizontal border lines incised into the exterior surfaces towards the panel edges to form squares. Inside these squares a circle is pierced into the centre, The panels are further decorated with four pierced triangular arrowhead shapes which surround the centre circles supported by two pierced circles at the base of each. Further circles are pierced into each corner of the squares. The smaller, secondary guard plates to the sides, and the knuckle bow at the front, are finished in similar style. The edges of all the guard plates are skillfully symmetrically fretted with cusps, merlons and triangles.
The cone-shaped pommel has a waisted button on top and is decorated with three sets of incised triple grooves, equally spaced apart, which radiate from the button, the middle groove being wider and more pronounced than those on its flanks in each case. The upper guard arm terminals of the basket fit into a chiselled groove which extends for the full circumference of the pommel just below its middle to secure the structure. The blade shoulders are secured in a chiselled groove in the cross guard bar underneath the hilt which retains its scrolled wrist guard.
The spirally grooved wooden baluster shaped grip retains its original shagreen cover and iron ferrule at the top. Originally the grip was bound with a wire wrap inside the groove which is now missing. The hilt also retains its thick leather liner at the base of the grip.
The tapering single edged blade is 32.75 inches (83.5 cm) long and of fine quality. A bold fuller runs underneath the spine from the hilt and terminates 8 inches (20 cm) from the rounded tip after which the blade is double edged. The armourers’ mark “ANDRIA FERARA” is stamped into the fuller near the hilt embellished with cross marks and an incised floret beneath the fuller on one side. The blade was most likely made in Solingen.
For similar styles of hilt see “Poetry in Steel The Earliest Swords of Walter Allan of Stirling”, by the Baron of Earlshall, London Park Lane Arms Fair, page 129 to 138, Spring 2018, Apollo Publishing. There are strong resemblances between this hilt and those produced in Stirling by both John and Walter Allan during this period, and particularly that shown on page 137 made by John Allan, figs 9 and 10,
See also Cyril Mazansky, “British Basket-Hilted Swords”, The Boydell Press, 2005, page 102, fig F5c, for a sword in Blair Castle in Perthshire, and page 113, fig F15c for a sword in the Marischal College in Aberdeen, although the pommel has been replaced on this sword, and page 115, fig F15i, for a sword in a private American collection.
The overall length of the sword is 38.5 inches (98 cm) long. The sword is in fine structural shape without repairs or damage apart from slight damage to the wrist guard. There are evenly spread light patches of blackened aging overall.