A Scottish Basket Hilted Sword dating to circa 1730-1740

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Price: £5,000

Ref: 42031972

Item Description

A fine robust Scottish basket hilted sword dating to the period preceding the  Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. The sword is a fine example of the Scottish armourers’ craft, the hilt being forged from thick structural rounded bars and plates. The aesthetic appeal of the hilt is apparent when viewed from the front revealing the symmetry of the panels and deliberate nature of the construction.  The single edged blade is a finely forged example with a double fuller most likely of Solingen manufacture

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 parallel border lines incised into the exterior surfaces towards the panel edges to form squares. Inside these squares a circle is pierced into the centre, filed on the outside to create saltire shapes. The panels are further decorated with four pierced triangular arrowhead shapes which surround the saltires 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, are finished in similar style. The knucklebow plate is decorated with lines but not pierced in the middle leaving a solid panel. This blank space was normally reserved for an inscription or crest but in this instance has been left blank.

The dome-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 retains its original shagreen cover together with its brass wire binding. The hilt also retains its full leather liner covered with red cloth on the outside and stitched with a blue silken hem, much of which remains.

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 bold fuller runs underneath the spine from the hilt and terminates 7 inches (18 cm) from the rounded tip after which the blade is double edged. A second fuller commences 7.5 from the hilt and runs underneath the first almost to the tip. The blade is 32 inches (81.5 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 edges to the guard panels.

The overall length of the sword is 37.75 inches (96 cm) long. The sword is in fine structural shape without repairs or damage and in blackened russet condition overall.