This black and silver beauty was designed for solo drilling, and created as a celebration of our client's PhD. As such, Chris could flex his artistic muscles, drawing out details of particular significance to our client's mix of Eastern and Western cultures. He started with an amalgam of pappenheimer hilts from the Stibbert collection, using this as a basis for a Japanese inspired decoration.
These include brass bell flowers encrusted on the guard and pommel, and three-dimensional bellflower carvings to the quillon terminals. The polished round between the shell and the bar represents the moon. While the result is a thing of beauty, it is also a willing and eager fencing tool that excels in the thrust, rotating easily in the hand for cavazione moves and returning swiftly to the central line. The guard is asymmetric, with a right handed offset to the guard rings for extra comfort and control.
Named for the Japanese words for "light" and "darkness, the Hikariyami rapier is a work of fencing-ready art, drawing out aspects of both Eastern and Western beauty, and evocative of secret duels in moonlit gardens.
Please see our pricing structure for an idea of what a similar sword would cost.
∴ Specs ∴
Total length: 124.5cm
Blade length: 111cm
Blade width at shoulder: 2.2cm
Blade stock: 8mm
Quillon span: 25cm
Grip length: 8cm
Grip and pommel: 13cm
Point of balance: 15.5cm
Weight: 1300g
Right-handed
Rounded tip
2mm edges
Fencing flex
∴ Notes ∴
The hand-forged and heat-treated guard and solid cylindrical pommel are blackened to a matte finish with differential polishing to bring out a notion of mist.
Both guard and pommel feature encrusted brass bell flowers, complemented by a petal-shaped piercing pattern to the shell. The polished round between the shell and bar represents the moon. The quillons end in hand-carved three-dimensional bellflowers.
The oak grip is wrapped first in linen thread, then in black kidskin, finished with a twist of steel wire.
∴ Gallery ∴
∴ A Transient Peace∴
The garden is awash with moonlight, like a sea of silver mist, rushing over ornamental bridges before you, flooding every tangle of flowers and cluster of blossoms, casting a light that is both soft and stark on the small beauties that you might otherwise have missed.
This is a time outside of time, you think, pausing to admire a cluster of delicate bell flowers trembling beneath the moon's benign indifferent gaze. It is not true night, when darkness serves only to obscure, nor does it hold the bold certainty of dawn. Rather, it is a liminal space that drifts between the two, perhaps lasting only seconds, perhaps lasting an eternity.
To your family, asleep in their beds, this time does not exist at all. It is only you, sleepless and driven by duty, drifting through the watercolour world that the moon has painted for you.
There is a peace in that, in the brief and brittle solitude that you share with the moon and the flowers. A silence broken only by the paper-thin whisper of warm breeze in the blossom-laden boughs as a confetti of petals crosses your path.
And then it is gone. That wordless, transient feeling that the moment was written for you. Another enters the garden as if summoned by the wind, striding purposively from behind the temple, silk robes flowing in the moonlight, slippered feet silent on the stone. They pause on the other side of the wooden bridge, waiting wordlessly.
With a deep sigh you turn on your heel to face them, giving a short, sharp bow before slipping your hand into the welcoming hold of your rapier hilt.
The time for peace is over.