It is believed that this wooden practice sword (bokken or bokuto) belonged to Ryoma. It is housed at the Gokoku Shrine (literally national defense shrine) in Ryoma’s hometown of Kochi, established to enshrine the souls of samurai who died in the Boshin Civil War of 1868-69, following the Meiji Restoration.

Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai (Ridgeback Press 1999)  is the only biographical novel of Sakamoto Ryoma in English.