A Samurai sword that has been sitting in a Rifle pawn shop will soon be returned to its previous owner after 14 years.

The pawnshop, Tradesmen Pawn Shop Gun Store is owned by Edward Wilks, who not only has been hanging on to the sword for 14 years but also an incredible story of how he got it and the history of the sword.

The sword was obtained by a United States soldier fighting in the battle of Iwo Jima following an attack from a Japanese Samurai, at which point the man shot and killed the Samurai and took the sword with him.

The soldier's son, who has chosen not to be identified, eventually inherited his father's sword and began working as a mechanic in Colorado.

This story takes a turn when Wilks, who is also a pilot, was forced to make an emergency landing while flying because of a crack in the plane's oil pan in 2006, at which point he met the soldier's son who fixed Wilks' plane.

The two got to talking and the mechanic told Wilks about the sword and its need for restoration, subsequently bringing the sword to Wilks' shop soon thereafter.

Oddly enough, the mechanic never returned to pick up his father's sword following Wilks repairing it, and the Rifle pawnshop owner would spend the next 14 years trying to track him down.

Then, this past Monday, Wilks would receive a call he'd been waiting for for almost a decade and a half from the mechanic.

The mechanic will be retrieving his father's sword from Wilks soon and plans to hang it on his wall above a photo of his father taken during the battle at which he obtained it, and plans to keep it in his family for generations.

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