In the early days following the ‘reopening’ of Japan to the West from around 1860 and the abolition of the samurai class in 1876 understanding of Japanese swords in the West was virtually non-existent. Much of the information on the subject offered by the Japanese themselves was blindly accepted and many outright fakes were thought to be of great antiquity.

When the V&A bought this sword in 1888 it was described as a ‘Fine old carved ivory Japanese Royal State Sword (early 18th century) for sale at £95’ (equivalent to about £7,000 today). The Museum accepted the sword on the grounds that ‘This is so important an example of Japanese art both in design and execution of the ivory carving that it is most desirable for the Museum collection. The price asked is very reasonable

The ivory scabbard of the sword is of extremely good quality and is finely carved with scenes depicting samurai (as yet unidentified, though they may in fact be generic 'types'). Many swords and daggers were re-mounted in ivory (or bone) scabbards in the Meiji period (1868-1912) and are poorly executed and the blades themselves are frequently of poor quality.

The scabbard of this sword obviously dates from around 1870-1880 and the sword blade is signed ‘Kubota Minamoto Muneaki’, a well-documented 19th-century swordsmith, and is in fact dated 1857.