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Post by Afoo on Jan 17, 2017 5:19:23 GMT
As you may know, I recently started getting into French swords. Having completed the holy trinity of the 1822 bancal , 1822 LC and the 1829 artillery, I was content to rest on my laurels and allow my expenses to recover. Lo and behold, this fellow came onto ebay. I have bought from the seller before and he seems to be a knowledgeable fellow. However, he listed the sword as an "unknown" type. Strange. No markings, and an unusual peen cap contribute to the air of mystery. Normally I would avoid, but the triangular blade drew me in. Got it for a decent price, especially since I was able to avoid international shipping costs dueto the seller being located in Canada. Shipment came in this morning and I rushed to open it, half out of excitement and half out of fear that I had made a mistake on my gamble. Would it be a frankenjob cobbled together by some bloke in the Pamir mountains? Would it be rubbish? I'm happy to report that neither is true. Mystery sword (above) vs an 1822 LC (below)This is my first sword with a triangular blade, and what a blade it is! The curves on that thing are clean and crisp, and that point means business. The design does look awkward compared to more conventional blade designs. As such, I was expecting it to handle like a crowbar, but that is not to be. The sword comes in at only 1.7 lb (795g) with a PoB of 4.5 inches, which is impressive considering the blade is a full 35.5 inches long. Blade width and thickness at the base is 1.2 inches and 12 mm respectively, putting it in the same general size category as the 1822/1883 pattern, but with much greater stiffness and slightly less weight. As such its a joy to handle and feels nimble in the hands. A point that will end them rightly. Look at the blade. Disregarding the localized corrosion, bright and cleanWhile all this is well and good, the true star of the show is the guard. It is definitely based on the 1822 LC, having the same three-bar hilt design and overall dimensions. However, it is decorated to the nines - even my 1822 bancal officers does not feature the same level of embellishment. Whomever had this made definitely had a taste for aesthetics. Close up of the guard. embellishments go all the way up the branches, and even along the central knucklebow. That is some quality work. Link to full res hereThe similarity between this sword and the 1822 LC both in terms of guard design and blade length suggests to me that this is an officers custom purchase 1822, though I am welcome to other suggestions. Regardless of what it is, its a nice piece, and a good introduction to the world of triangular blade profiles. The unusual nature of the grips makes me concerned, but the quality of the blade and the guard makes up for it. Mystery sword vs 1822 LC - resemblance is easy to see
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Post by Jordan Williams on Jan 17, 2017 6:42:11 GMT
I'm also on your 1822 officers boat, maybe an adapter of the preval blade with an less massive hilt? No matter what it is, it looks beautiful, the detail on the hilt looks beautiful. How does the grip feel?
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 17, 2017 6:43:43 GMT
Lame Preval its called. General Preval had a design with this blade upand running in about 1830. Officers started using it here and there after 1880. Infantry and some Cavalry Officers. I have one in my 1822 thread. It looks like you have a screw on blade, but I am not sure. Anyway, this is a nice find, but I hope this is not a pastiche. Looking at your pictures The blade platform on the guard does not look like it was made to support this triangular blade, but a sabre blade. I like the decoration. Very well done. But whether this is a pastiche or a private design from around 1880 I can not say. Like to see a picture of the peen or peen cap. Curious as to how this construction works. The wire looks very much like the wire on your 1822, so that grip may be authentic. I would like to see what Dave has to say about this one. Google Preval blades and General Preval. He was quite a portrait.
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Post by Afoo on Jan 17, 2017 15:36:36 GMT
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 17, 2017 18:52:10 GMT
If you google ,, Preval sabre '', you'll find a number of instances where the Preval blade was used. There is one Infantry model, some M1822's, of course an M1896 and a real Preval sword or rapier ( How to call such a thing? I mean its not a sabre, nor a sword. It does not cut. So rapier?). Anyway, around 1880 this type of blade was a kind of hit amongst some Officers. It still could do things the M1882 inferior blades could not, like really kill some people in action. It was designed to do this at a time the Cavalry was still relevant. When looking at the examples from the Google search I think yours is legit, but the grip on yours is not the standard grip I see on the others. It would be nice to find out whether this grip is of any help in holding the ,,sabre'' in the ,,hand lance'' way. When we assume the ,,sabre'' is legit, we have to admit that the grip was designed as such for a reason, or else the Officer who had this made would have stuck a standard M1822 grip on it like I have on mine. I am curious about that and about the construction also. It looks like the pommel cap can be screwed off. If so, under there should be a nut holding the assembly together. As these little nuts always loosen up, there is a strong case for the cap to be able to be removed. Another thing: did you take a peek under the leather washer? There might be a poincon under there, half covered by the guard? My M1822 Preval is 28mm wide at base, 94 cm long and weighs 916 grams. I would like to know whether the old Prevals were any heavier. Mine feels more like a Degen, which is not surprising as mine was owned by a two star General.
Edit: I wish you would upload the pictures into the thread. The last bunch takes ages to download. Lazy Canoos....
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Post by Afoo on Jan 17, 2017 19:49:29 GMT
I am not nearly as brave as you, so I will hold off disassembly for the time being. As for the washer, its pretty well stuck on there, though I think I will try to pry it off tonight. At least I should make sure the corrosion at the base of the blade does not spread further down. Am afraid that removing it will cause the blade to loosen up though. I know its a relatively easy fix, but not if you are like me and lack any leather working supplies (or any supplies for that matter).
Hmm - thats pretty impressive. I guess mine is not far off for weight, considering the shorter blade (90 cm, similar width). I also notice the guard is built more lightly than on the 1822 LC. I like the triangle blade - its light, but still gives a sense of confidence.
The grips on mine actually help a fair bit with keeping the sabre on point. My chief complaint about the 1822 LC was that the grips were too narrow. The Preval grips are much wider and fills the hand. Very stable.
Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated. I feel a lot more confident in it now.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Jan 17, 2017 20:01:43 GMT
Stab something As for the washer, the one on my 1822 (which I still luv, me and my girly hands) was stuck in pretty good, I used a screwdriver to get mine off. Also of note, mine has a tiny tiny wiggle, (thought I did hit a decent few things with it, including looping apart a Christmas tree) but I bought some epoxy to put in the uber small gap.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2017 20:21:57 GMT
The washer may have been seated under the blade shoulders. Make sure that is not the case before prying at it.
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Post by Afoo on Jan 18, 2017 0:35:09 GMT
I believe Edelweiss is correct - the washer isn't going anywhere As for the tang nut, I managed to get it off. I think part of it was redone at some point in time. The tang is threaded, but the top part has been re-threaded at a later date with what appears to be modern machinery to accept a smaller diameter nut. The nut looks new and the wooden grip also looks like its been messed with as well 0 trimmed down a bit to accommodate a new pommel as evidenced by the relatively fresh exposed wood. I still believe that the blade and guard are original - perhaps not from the same sword or even the same time period, but not modern either, though perhaps the scholars of the forums can glean more insight from these images than I can The grip is very tight on the tang. I was already nervous taking the nut off, so thats as far as I will go for now in terms of disassembly. I would be more than happy if the blade and guard are original to the time period - even if they are not from the same sword. Even if not, I believe that it still captures the feel of a Preval, and thats good enough for me. This cost less than the CS smallsword or Universal French Dragoon sword - and I know which one I would prefer Full res images here. I know Uhlan does not like my external upload. I am just wary of being Kelly'ed by the admin on account of attachment usage (real or imagined) - flic.kr/s/aHskM71NQW
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Jan 18, 2017 12:25:36 GMT
Edelweiss is right. If the washer sits under the blade shoulders you should let it be. Removal will loosen up the entire construction. In my M1822 post I showed the difference between the old and the new M1822 hilts. Have a look please. The new, after about 1880, hilts were much smaller, of lighter build and some even were cast from a new material that looked more like copper. Those have a reddish tint. All traditional French hilts were cast from ARCO, a bronze of the usual mix but with a large amount of charcoal added. This typical French hilt bronze was quite white or light of colour, anyway not the butter yellow of normal bronze. It also was much stronger and it flowed better in the moulds. As a result they could cast the hilts in one go. It is fun to study early pre ARCO hilts and see the welds.
Now I will try to explain what I see. The hilt has the bar decoration as seen on Staff Officers sabres and as such I cannot say other than this hilt is a genuine Staff Officers hilt in the new smaller style from around 1880. The grip wood looks good to me, no problems. All leather parts on this sabre were restored at some point, but this was done by a pro, as was the wiring. The blade could have come with the hilt. Prevals were the fashion at the time amongst Officers. So far so good. This looks like the work of a pro, which is not something one sees on a pastische made up to make a fast buck. What is bothering me is this: The pommel cap should at least have the decoration found on period Officers sabres. The leaf decoration. This is missing. I see a run of the mill troopers pommel cap from after 1882. As the rest of the restoration looks professional, this pisses me off. Looking at the last batch of pictures I see the inside of the cap all green and dirty, but the inlet for the knuckle bow hook looks fresh and clean, as is the threading on the tang end. All in all, this work seems to have been done in a professional way. The milling of the pommel nut looks well done too. So why did not the person who did this job take care to use a decorated Officers pommel cap? Bummer. Still, seeing the amount and quality of the work done on this sabre, I cannot say this was all done to decieve a prospective buyer. In that case the blade would have been epoxied to the grip and hilt and a fake peen glued on too. Fast and cheap, sure to have a good return on investment and no questions asked. So all I can say at the moment is that the hilt is period and the blade too. A lot of good work was done to get them together, but without malice. Someone wanted a sabre just like this and made it so, without bothering to get a good Officers pommel cap. And by looking at the clean parts this was not done too long ago. That verdegris you get quickly with leather conditioner reacting with bronze. I would like to know whether the new threads are DIN. If not, this sabre might have some age to it. Since I have the impression you did not pay through the nose for this sabre, I'd say you did not get hurt very much. It is at least a good working and safe to wield assembly of genuine parts, looking and handling like a good period Staff Officers sabre should. The blade can easely be removed and cleaned up a bit. Even swapped for a better one. I do not know whether you are good with your hands, but I think I have an Officers 1882 pommel cap laying around somewhere.
Edit. Still mulling over the old rusted threads on the tang. It could be of course that the old assembly with the small nut inside the original pommel cap gave way, which would not be such a great surprise since that construction was bad in the first place, what with that small nut getting lose all the time. It might be an indication that the blade and the hilt belong together and that what we see here is just a later repair where they thought it better to get rid of the original pommel cap. Inside the original pommel cap there is a plateau where the small nut rests on. The part with the flange is soldered on top and holds the peen or when the tang is not peened it is just soldered on. Like one sees on early M1829's.
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Post by Afoo on Jan 18, 2017 15:54:14 GMT
Indeed - if you look at some of the pictures, you can see that the pommel is a slightly different shade than the rest.
I like your explanation for the re-threading of the peen. Seems odd that they would go through the effort of re-machining the tang, rather than just finding a nut which fit the original threading. Unless they were working within the confines of what they had available at the time.
Its even possible the pommel and tang nut are modern reproductions, and came as a set. I think I am decently good with my hands, but never worked on a sword before. I could buy the pommel cap off you, though not sure if I could use it while retaining the original pommel nut, and I am not up for changing the construction of the sword.
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Post by victoriansword on Jan 18, 2017 18:10:41 GMT
Was the tang lengthened by soldering on an additional section of threads for the modern nut? It looks like a modern composite piece to me--a new sword made form old parts. The exception being the chunky-looking grip, which from the photos looks like it was made in the last 20 years or so.
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Post by Afoo on Jan 18, 2017 19:09:01 GMT
The wood on the grip does look new - though it could also be an old grip which was recently re-cut, thereby exposing fresh wood to the surface.
The end of the tang is not soldered on. It definitely looks like the end has been re-threaded using a machine. Perhaps the threads on the original tang were stripped or damaged somehow? The machining looks very modern.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Feb 6, 2017 8:40:10 GMT
A few thoughts - the floral decoration on the top of the hilt looks extremely similar to the decoration on saddles here in California, and very similar to Mexican saddles as well. Perhaps it may not be French? Then again, that floral large leaf may be very French, I'm non too familiar with my late 19th century French decor.
As for the threads, my IOD 1889 with a threaded tang has the problem of the pommel cap being crooked, and not seating properly. Perhaps the new threading was to fix that?
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