BY ALBERT CHEN

A Japanese wakizashi carved with a dragon and presented in richly decorated gold-lacquer mounts sold for £83,700 at Bonhams, leading a sale in which every lot found a buyer. The Japanese Swords: The Peter Yorke Collection online auction closed on November 11, 2026, after opening on October 30. Bonhams described the result as a “white-glove” sale, the auction term for a complete sell-through. All sale prices reported here include buyer’s premium.

The leading sword will be familiar to readers of WAN’s pre-sale report on the Peter Yorke Collection, which highlighted the wakizashi before bidding began. Catalogued under “Masamune Lineage,” it was offered with an estimate of £15,000–£25,000. The completed auction now supplies the outcome to that earlier preview, with the leading blade joined by strong results for several other swords discussed below.

Dragons, Zodiac Animals and Centuries of Craft

Bonhams dates the blade to the fifteenth or sixteenth century, in the Muromachi or Momoyama period. Measuring 57.7 centimetres from tip to tang, it bears a guardian deity riding a dragon on one side and a flowering plum tree on the other. Its nineteenth-century mounts are decorated with zodiac animals, seasonal plants and crests. The “Masamune Lineage” catalogue heading is significant: Bonhams identifies the 1346 date inscribed on the tang as spurious, so the blade should not be presented as a verified work by Masamune himself.

The sale also rewarded other periods and forms of Japanese swordmaking. A Bizen tantō dated 1558 with Ichijō-school fittings achieved £56,820, while a Yoshihiro-lineage Sōshū katana dated 1859 brought £54,260. A sixteenth-century Mino katana catalogued under Kanesugi sold for £33,780. Together, the results show buyers responding to several different combinations of blades, mountings and collecting history, rather than concentrating solely on the leading lot.

The Legacy of a Lifelong Specialist

Peter Yorke, who died in 2023, began dealing in antique arms in the late 1960s and spent more than five decades building his expertise. Bonhams describes a collection assembled through sustained study and an international network of collectors, dealers and institutions. With the auction now complete, its 100% sell-through gives a clear final chapter to a sale that offered buyers both Japanese craftsmanship and the choices of a specialist who devoted much of his life to understanding it.

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Japanese Swords From Peter Yorke’s Collection Head to Bonhams, Led by £25,000 Wakizashi

Source: Bonhams.

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