Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 26, 2018 11:35:05 GMT
As I am really curious as to what you all have to say, I would like to do an examination of the sabre and present it in the state it is in now. Later, after I cleaned it up, I will do a second post incorporating everything learned here from your insights and of course to show it in a, I hope, much improved state. To be sure, for me at least, this sabre is one of the many confusing Officers models of the late 1800's and the beginning of the 19th century. With confusing I mean ,, heritage uncertain'', though in this instance I opt for it to have originated in the (South) German states or maybe Austria. The pommel cap with the slight overhanging plate and the ring mounts on the scabbard seem to point in that direction. The slotted hilt itself does not indicate any particular provenance. It can be seen on German, Austrian, French , British and even American sabres, as witnessed by the most excellent post by elbrittania39: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/55177/american-swords-smithsonian-pics-fixed . What service this sabre was for, (Light) Cavalry or Dragoons or whatever, is also not clear to me. So I hope you all will chime in and enlighten me with your knowledge. Examination and setting up the work list. The hilt. The general state is not very bad. Quite good actually. There is some rust, but as far as I can see, it is not very deep. The hilt was lacquered at one point. The hilt steel is about 3 mm thick, in places even thicker. The grip which still has most of the leather intact, though it needs stabilizing, was wired in the past. The wire is all gone except for a tiny bit under the pommel cap. The back strap is faceted and the pommel cap has a peen plate on it that sticks out a little at the front. The whole ensemble is still in good working order, though the ferrule is lose due to the shrunken grip. The blade. Here may be monsters. Though it looks quite well preserved, I found quite a few instances of what could be the dreaded steel de-lamination. Mostly on one side though. This phenomenon can regularly be observed in a more or lesser extend in Officers blades made to private order. ALL forges used seconds and thirds to hawk on unsuspecting not very well off Officers if they thought they could get away with it. The blade is well tempered though, with good flex. It is not marked, but there is some kind of interesting quite deep spot half under the red felt washer and the guard that may be a stamp. I cannot quite make it out. The scabbard. The oxidation on both the sabre and the scabbard is genuine and even. That makes a good case for the scabbard belonging to the sabre. The ring mounts are in the ,, Austrian '' taste, but badly brazed on. There are quite some gaps between the scabbard and the mounts. The double screw design also seems to point in a general ,,German'' direction, though the screws themselves may be modern. No stamps anywhere. Here are some numbers: Length OA: 96.5 cm. Length sabre: 95.5 cm. Length blade: 84 cm. Length grip inside: 9.8 cm. Length grip outside: 11 cm. Blade width: 34.5 mm. Blade thickness: 9-6-4-2.5-2 mm. Hilt steel is about 3 mm thick, even more here and there. POB: 20 cm or 7.87". Weight OA: 1342 gram. Weight sabre: 723 gram. Thank you in advance for your input. Cheers.
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pgandy
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Post by pgandy on Aug 26, 2018 13:59:48 GMT
All I have to say is “Where’s Pino? Here Pino." Am looking forward to seeing the finished product.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2018 15:55:16 GMT
It appears familiar to me from somewhere but not in my American books that I can think of. The US Potter (and similar) steel/iron slotted hilts lack the refinements shown here particularly the scabbard. The red felt quite common, from the third quarter of the 18th and well into the 19th century but mostly on continental and British work. My Alsace sabre marked to Berger has such felt and definitely decorated to the US tastes but this slotted hilt presented doesn't exactly point to the American fashion post revolution. Again, in looking at the scabbard, not so early in the themes of slotted hilts. I can't see much of the mark but it reminds me a lot of my most magic spadroon, with a rounded fuller and my thoughts of a Germany made blade. Jet black ebony. The ferrule and other furbishing nothing really like your faceted backstrap and flat ferrule. Still, the fuller and mark made me think of mine. From Sardinia to Scandik, your sword probably lay somewhere in the larger ballpark of Europe.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Aug 26, 2018 17:21:50 GMT
My Prussian artillery sabre has a grip which looks nearly identical in terms of material used to your sword. Made by Otto Mertens in Solingen, but in 1897. Perhaps it is a German state piece?
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 27, 2018 15:17:04 GMT
Consensus so far is that it almost certainly is German and also quite close to Austria. Austria had regulation models with this type of slotted guard plate. Around the 1800's Germany was awash with these ,, rogue '' sabres. Never quite following a standard model design to the letter and often unmarked.
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Post by Pino on Aug 27, 2018 15:30:35 GMT
Hmm with no markings or specific symbol so your guess is as good as mine. The hilt does remind me a lot of Austro-Hungarian officers pallaschs 1798 so this can be any country/state that was in contact with the Empire: South Germany (Bavaria, Hesse) or Northern Italy; definitely end of the 18th cen (c. 1780-90’s) for officer of either cavalry or mounted troop units.
I’ll check my Austrian sources to see if I can find a suspect.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 27, 2018 16:17:03 GMT
Appendix.1. Steel de-lamination. The Slotted Hilt blade I am working on now is a classic example of this dreaded phenomenon. I marked the spots where the fissures are visible in red. The spots form a continuous line from the ricasso to the very tip of the blade if you were to join up the four pictures. Which is what is going on really. Over the entire length of the steel bar one side was folded on top of the other right over the middle. This folding never was totally hammered out, so the steel never totally fused. What you see are the high spots where the cracks come to the surface. In most cases the high spots are connected with cracks under the surface, so you may polish all you want, but when one part of a fissure is polished out, another part will open up. This is what inspectors were looking for mainly. Even before the stress tests blades that showed signs of de-lamination were thrown out. The stress tests were mainly designed as to discover hidden de-lamination problems. Flex tests made sure most if not all hidden fissures openend up. Blades that survived the tests but had fissures open up became seconds. That is probably what this blade is. Thirds would be snapped blades or blades that never sprung back again. Those probably were turned into hunting swords and daggers. I have a couple of those that look like parts of regulation blades were used. One sports the upper of what looks like an M1816 HC blade. Others are made of, so it seems, the uppers of stout military (small) swords. Those are nasty sob's by the way. Remember that those tests were done on regulation Troopers and Officers blades. And furbishers like le Page and Manceau made sure they had the good stuff too. Officers, like the former owner of the blade under examination here, who made a private order were fobbed off with seconds. I see this every time. So, if you want a good blade for sure, you stick with Troopers models, or regulation Officers models. Manceau and other houses come second. And if you want to walk on the wild side go buy private order Officers sabres. That gild and blue may hide monsters though....
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 27, 2018 16:40:41 GMT
Hi Pino. Glad you showed up. Please do have a look around. When I updated my OS my archives were zapped, so I am totally borked right now. Lost the lot due to being too lazy to put stuff on a thumb drive.
And before I forget again: Thanks Edelweiss for your comments.
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Post by wlewisiii on Aug 28, 2018 1:43:37 GMT
So, if you want a good blade for sure, you stick with Troopers models, or regulation Officers models. Now this is a fascinating lesson in itself. Was this true of Ames and other US makers as well?
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Post by Jordan Williams on Aug 28, 2018 2:21:56 GMT
So, if you want a good blade for sure, you stick with Troopers models, or regulation Officers models. Now this is a fascinating lesson in itself. Was this true of Ames and other US makers as well? I've had very good experience with American made swords but the American patterns made by Germany (for me at least) tended to be of lesser quality. Softer steel, looser construction, felt a little bit different as well.
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Post by wlewisiii on Aug 28, 2018 2:44:04 GMT
Very very interesting. Germany would have had the "reputation" in the US so it would attract the officers with money and no experience... Thank you for the information!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2018 7:46:37 GMT
It is rather impossible to generalize US sword manufacture and retailing in a single post. Ames and a few others were actually blade makers, while others either importing entire swords or blades and other parts. There were dozens of smaller makers and producers well before Ames started making swords with some of the bigger names such as Starr and Rose all but discontinuing sword production after the war of 1812, with Ames getting early contracts in the 1830s. Ames history can be read online to an extent and you will see the patriarch started in business making farm tools. The Ames family goes back to the 17th century in New England and few that have not really dug into that history would know the steel was being produced by a cousin in CT. Roby, Mansfield&Lamb, Providence Tool and others similarly beginning in conversion from farm implement production. On the other hand, you have Horstmann, a man that bought virtually all the sword blades from Weyersburg. Much of earlier production by Widmann, also importing (with that shop and goods going to Horstmann after his death). At any rate, I find Ames a late player as it were and not really a parallel to early US sword production. There was an incredible advance in steel quality overall by the time of that first Ames sword contract with many, many imported blades and swords from England, Germany and France. Consider also that there was a guild system in Germany, whereas there was none in the US. There were inspectors in both cases for military contracted swords and firearms. To extend some of that thought would be that Ames produced the officer's swords with the same blades used for the troopers, or in other cases still on the same line. Horstmann on the other hand literally had barrels of blades to fit by the time Ames was in full swing and bought some materials from Ames. Really, way too much to generalize in a single post and why I continue to suggest starting with some primers in hand for easy reference without having to speculate. Scour all those and then ask why but believe me, there is a wealth of information already posted to boards and sites that answer all sorts of questions. Mike McWatters 20 year old pages, for instance. It is unfortunate that such gems are lost to time. More blogs and articles appear though, such as all the pinned threads here. www.angelfire.com/wa/swordcollector/marks/page1.htmlI spent roughly $300 on books in the past year and sure could have spent that on an unknown sword or lots of pizza but I look at these tomes of print worth the price of admission to attend those seminars at my leisure. One of those, about $80 and my reason to buy it really only looking for those three pages (of 400). The rest of treating myself to that book is the other 1,000 or so manufacturers being listed and chronicled. Super dry stuff but more relevant to me than 20 posts of speculation and wikis, or word of mouth. Let the truth set you free www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?90613-Books-we-all-have
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 28, 2018 14:12:53 GMT
The situation at Klingenthal was getting that bad, with Officers getting hurt or hurting bystanders with failing second rate blades, that a law was introduced forbidding French Officers to buy anything less than inspected blades. I forget when. 1830? 1835? After that time all French Officer private orders went through the inspection system. Anyway, the fact that such an law was deemed necessary at all speaks for itself. How the situation was in North America is something I do not have insight in. All I can say for a fact that it was about 1870-1871, just after the Franco German war, that German exports exploded, mainly because of superior steel quality and the ability to deliver that superior quality in quantity. The ,, Solingen is the best '' meme we all know, was grounded here. The situation for the British forges was getting so bad in 1871 that British law insisted that german imports be branded as such. That is were the ,, made in Germany '' stamp comes from. Needless to say that this action backfired spectacularly. The public eagerly bought any sabres, blades, knives and other assorted metalware, adorned with this much praised badge of quality. So yes, things changed in Solingen too. It just took a while.
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Post by bluetrain on Aug 28, 2018 17:45:31 GMT
There is a contemporary German folk-pop number entitled "Mei Schatz is Made in Germany," and that is the exact title.
Das ist sechr gut Musik! But just like Lawrence Welk and dark beer, it might be an acquired taste.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2018 20:03:51 GMT
I would imagine the change of law re inspection in France also coincides with the government choosing to discontinue contracts for Klingenthal in favor of Chatellerault due to logistics of geo-political control. users.skynet.be/euro-swords/chatellerault.htmThe labeling of goods did push forward in the 1880s amongst European countries and the US. Generally regarded a tariff issue and the matter revisited again in this century. There were several marks of quality throughout the 19th century and some of them more obscure than others. Emblazoned with the word Warranted, we see use both on continental made blades, the Proved and Iron Proof coming along. We have covered some of this in the past. One obscure mark seems controversial and that is the simple stamp or etch at the base of blade as a simple G or GG. Some have said it is in adherence of German law regarding steel quality. I'd have to dig for the English law but iirc under Richard II or Henry IV is a ruling on steel, from weapons to armour. Some of that matter tariff driven with swords and armour of Flemish origin/shipping being banned outright from English ports. Another part of that to increase internal production and treaties with Sweden for iron. At any rate, we've wandered a good bit from late 18th to early 19th century slotted hilt swords. I took a look at Neumann's book and didn't find it in those pages of late 18th century horseman's swords. I can't say I would have absolutely expected to see one there but it was worth checking.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 29, 2018 8:01:52 GMT
,, One obscure mark seems controversial and that is the simple stamp or etch at the base of blade as a simple G or GG. Some have said it is in adherence of German law regarding steel quality.''
That would be the G for Guss stahl or cast steel in English.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 29, 2018 8:19:50 GMT
Update: Found another long fissure close to the spine just under the ricasso. In other news: Based on what I found these last days, I will settle with just removing, where possible, the black crud that is now sitting in the cracks. That means I do not have to go ,,deep'' so hopefully I will not open up fissures currently under the top layer. If you look at what is happening inside the red bordered rectangle, see the picture below, you see at the right the fissure still with some crud in it and to the left the other end of that same fissure, but now polished clean. Once the fissures are clean there is just a thin silvery line showing, which, if I am right, could be blended in under the polish, so you'll have to look twice before seeing anything suspect. At the moment I am quite sure this is what was done long ago. Nobody in his right mind would contemplate buying a blade with those ugly black scars in it. The first owner of this blade probably never knew what was going on. This is the view while still on 60 grid level. I hope when the full polish is done it will look even better. Another interesting tidbit: Spending these last couple of days with my nose close to the blade I have come to the happy conclusion that this sabre was never ever used. The blade shows no signs of sharpening at all. No bits of the edge missing. Nothing. Not even evidence of kids playing with it. So it is probably still in as bought condition, prestine. Nice. Will have to keep this in mind going forward.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Aug 29, 2018 10:33:58 GMT
So I went over the spot seen above some more with 60 grid and lightly with 180 grid. This starts to look real good even with my amateurish efforts. Stands to reason that a professional polisher at the time would have rendered the silvery fissure lines virtually invisible.
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Uhlan
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Post by Uhlan on Sept 1, 2018 18:17:55 GMT
I think I got the thing down: Austrian M1798 Light Dragoon Officer sabre. See: Pallasche der Habsburgermonarchie by Jiri Protiva, fig. 80, page 107. The hilt of the pallasch shown is nearly identical.
Work is going well. Probably have the sabre up next weekend.
Cheers.
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Post by Pino on Sept 1, 2018 19:20:32 GMT
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