The JD Basket Hilt
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
This handsome basket-hilted sword came about as a rare collaboration between Chris and his past self! Our client came to us with a Danelli Armouries arming sword blade, most likely made by Chris during his apprenticeship, and asked if we could add a basket hilt. This is not normally the sort of work Chris takes on, but as the client was a member of our home fencing club, and the sword was to be a gift for another clubmate, we agreed.
The basket is historically proportioned, with a fantasy aesthetic that borrows from traditional highland designs. The ribbon-section barwork spirals and swirls across the asymmetric hilt, with the initials of the wielder picked out on the inside guard.
Paired with the blade, it makes for a willing and versatile broadsword, happy in both cutting and thrusting actions, and excellent at close measure and in rotational moves. The new basket adds comprehensive hand protection and a new chapter to the blade's story!
Please see our pricing structure for an idea of what a similar sword would cost.
∴ Specs ∴
Total length: 100cm
Blade length: 84cm from cross
Blade width at widest: 3.5cm
Grip length: 11cm
Grip and pommel: 14cm
Basket span: 12.5cm
Weight: 1113g
Point of Balance: 8.5cm from cross
Left-handed
Blunt edges & rounded tip
Fencing safe flex
∴ Notes ∴
The hand-forged and heat-treated basket and pommel are antiqued to a matte grey finish. The basket is formed of ribbon-section barwork in a pattern of spirals and S-shapes, with the initials "JD" picked out.
The pommel is spherical, with hand-engraved organic swirls. The oak grip is wrapped first in linen thread, and then in dark blue leather.
∴ Gallery ∴
∴ A Tangled Path ∴
You find yourself whistling as you scramble across increasingly familiar features. Not a tune of any sort, but the impulsive trills of a blackbird. A simple, happy sort of sound. You can’t say how long it’s been since you’ve traversed these rocks or hopped across the hidden burns. Too long, you guess. But at last you are on your way home.
You rest your right hand comfortably in the hilt of your sword as you wonder. Not your leftt hand, to draw it, but your right to secure it at your hip as you leap and clamber. God knows the sword has somehow kept you safe all these long years. Now it’s time for you to return the favour.
Your thumb plays over the swirls and spirals of the hilt, its ways well-travelled, and you can’t help but muse on the twists and turns of your own life’s path and how they led you back here. It’s been a long road, and a tangled one, but you lived to tell the tale.
You duck as you step into a scrubby copse of hazel, narrowly missing a low-hanging branch. You remember playing her as a lad, climbing up into the trees with your brother to cut fresh switches to use as makeshift swords. The path is narrower now, fallen into disuse, with low, scrawny branches snagging at your clothes and skin.
There is something unsettling about the place, though it takes you a moment to realise what it is: it’s the quiet. No birdsong, no wind in the leaves, no babbling burns. Even your own whistling falls silent as the hairs on the back of your neck prick. There’s something here.
Then a soft thud sounds from behind you, as if someone or something has dropped down from the trees. You reach for your sword with your left hand, praying that the luck it has given you thus far will hold.
“Welcome home, brother,” says a familiar voice.
