I remain grateful for the help and interest of this community. The growth of expert communities within – and on – internet communities truly has changed the rate and quality of understanding in collectors’ communities.
The discussion of potential candidates for the original blade that found its way into these mounts has been interesting. The British Model of 1796 would probably be how to bet. But anything could have found its way to an odd corner of early 19th century Japan - so I remain an agnostic or at least uncertain. There are those German Bluchers. And weren’t there early 19th century Dutch blades with wide fullers? The Dutch were still getting into Japan – legally – at that time.
Philip says that he will make sense of all this if I supply views of the disassembled sword. This sword has what the Japanese call a “Dashi-zame” or bare ray-skin. That means the kashira (the pommel) is fixed. I have removed the TSUBA to show the tang. It is abused, but note (!) that the washers (the seppa) were NOT recycled fittings from another Japanese style blade. They are NEW for this sword.
And to reveal a secret that I was not ready to share, in the attached picture I slipped the band in the middle of the handle back. It was loose enough to make that easy, but look what it covered – a Cross. That makes it tempting to speculate that the carrier of this sword was either a Christian or an ally of one of the southern leaders who had lined with Catholic missionaries. Or maybe he was just flashing a bunch of exotic symbols.
In any case this sword makes sense as something from the early to mid 19th Century. It was NOT something that would have been ginned up for the warfare that broke out AFTER the Meiji Restoration.
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