A Fabulous Museum Quality Sword, Chokuto, 8th Century Nara Style, A Wonderful & Powerful Shinto Period Katana, Circa 1600's, Samurai Katana Statement Piece With Exceptional Fittings & A Long .31 inch Blade
A four hundred year old original samurai sword that is honorifically designed in the ancient 1300 year old samurai sword style. All original, fantastic original Edo period mounts, fittings and saya. A fabulous and spectacular Shinto period bladed katana, with a stunning and rare blade form, of a near straight blade in the ancient chokuto style from the ancient 700's Nara period.
Possibly made as a prized presentation piece or a sword to represent a famous sword from ancient samurai history.
The nakago has one mekugi-ana, and the blade displays a beautiful undulating midare hamon, and a simply stunning itame grain hada. The sword is mounted with a long, beautifully bound tsuka, with pure a gold arabesque patterning design onlaid onto an iron Higo style ground decorated fuchi, and a pierced iron kashira, decorated with inlaid cherry blossom and a pair of very fine shakudo and gold floral pattern menuki over same-gawa giant rayskin and under fine brown silk tsukaito. It has a superb circular iron tsuba decorated with kinko leaves, and a kinko mimi rim, in sinchu-gold-alloy on iron, and it is presented in its original brown Edo lacquer, with black contrast, saya, decorated within the lacquer with complex cloud forms with abilone shell inlaid, It has an iron pierced sukashi kajiri at the base of the saya, in a crashing waves design.
The sword has an optical impression of being more curved than it actually is due to the angle of its tsuka, and the additional slight curvature of the saya.
Of all the weapons that man has developed since our earliest days, few evoke such fascination as the samurai sword of Japan. To many of us in the movie image of the samurai, adorned in his fantastic armour, galloping into battle on his horse, his colourful personal flag, or sashimono, whipping in the wind on his back, has become the very symbol of Japan, the Empire of the Rising Sun. And, truly, to the samurai of real life, nothing embodied his warrior's code of Bushido more than his sword, considered inseparable from his soul.
Indeed, a sword was considered such a crucial part of a samurai's life that when a young samurai was about to be born, a sword was brought into the bedchamber during the delivery. When the time came for an old samurai to die and cross over into the 'White Jade Pavilion of the Afterlife' his honoured sword was placed by his side. Even after death, a daimyo, or nobleman, believed he could count on his samurai who had followed him into the next world to use their keen blades to guard him against any demons, just as they had wielded their trusty weapons to defend him against flesh-and-blood enemies in this life. In a samurai family the swords were so revered that they were passed down from generation to generation, from father to son. If the hilt or scabbard wore out or broke, new ones would be fashioned for the all-important blade. The hilt, the tsuba (hand guard), and the scabbard themselves were often great art objects, with fittings sometimes of gold or silver. The hilt and scabbard were created from the finest hand crafted materials by the greatest artisans that have ever lived. Often, too, they told a story from Japanese myths. Magnificent specimens of Japanese swords can be seen today in the Tokugawa Art Museum's collection in Nagoya, Japan.
The chokuto (直刀, "straight sword") is a straight, one-edged Japanese sword that was produced prior to the 10th century. Its basic style is likely derived from similar swords of ancient China. Chokuto were used on foot for stabbing or slashing and were worn hung from the waist. Until the Heian period such swords were called tachi (大刀), which should not be confused with tachi written as 太刀 referring to curved swords.
In the MET, The Metropolitan Museum in New York, there is an incredibly similar blade, Title: Blade for a Straight Single-Edged Sword (Chokutō)
Date: 7th century or earlier exhibit number 06.310.6, We show our 17th century chokuto blade next to the 7th century samurai chokuto blade in the MET in New York, as photo 10 in the gallery.
Blade, measured from tsuba to tip of the kissaki, almost 31 inches long, and over 41.5 inches long in the saya.
Code: 24177