A Scottish Basket Hilted Sword dating to circa 1730-1740

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Price: £4,500

Ref: 42110854

Item Description

A fine Scottish basket hilted sword dating to the second quarter of the 18th century. The sword is a nicely contoured example of this distinctive sword type. The hilt is forged from thick structural rounded bars and plates. The single edged blade is a finely forged example with a double fuller most likely of Solingen manufacture

The basket guard is finely forged into its elegant 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 then further decorated with four flanged heart shapes which surround the centre circles. Further circles are pierced into each corner of the squares. The smaller, secondary guard plates to the sides, and the knucklebow plate to the front, are finished in similar style.

The cone-shaped pommel has a waisted button on top and is decorated with four pairs of incised double lines, equally spaced apart, which radiate from the button. 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 is covered with shagreen and bound with wire. The hilt also has a full leather liner covered with red cloth on the outside and stitched with a blue silken hem.

The tapering single edged blade is of fine quality. It has a  ricasso which extends 1.5 inches (4.0 cm) from the hilt. A short bold fuller extends for the length of the ricasso just inside the blunt edge of the cutting side of the blade. A further bold fuller runs underneath the spine from the hilt and terminates  25.5 inches (65 cm) along after which the blade is double edged to the the tip. A second fuller commences a short distance from the hilt runs underneath the first. The blade is just under 32 inches (81.25 cm) long.

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, particularly that shown on page 137, figs 11 and 12, which is a robust hilt of similar profile lacking fretted edges to the guard panels.

See also Cyril Mazansky, “British Basket-Hilted Swords”, The Boydell Press, 2005, page 106, fig F12, for a sword in a private American collection and pages 115, fig F15h, and page 116, fig F16, for swords in the Marischal College in Aberdeen, all of which have plain unfretted edges to the guard panels.

The overall length of the sword is 37.5 inches (95 cm) long.