8 Spadroons.

Venus visiting the forge of Vulcan. Workshop of Jan van Breugel. Circa 1600.





Introduction.

Spadroons. Or as the French call them: ,, Epée à lame demi espadron''.
Which sort of translates in human language to ,,Sword with half a blade'' and this implicates a backsword.
It is what you get when you would cut a decent sword blade in half over its length, which is, of course, an awful thing only a French person would think of. Two backswords.
It is not my intention to write the umteenth exposé on the spadroon phenomenon.
Thankfully we have VictorianSword who did the heavy lifting for us in writing and the videos of Mr. Nick Thomas to verbally implant some good ideas and wisdom into the heads of those that cannot or will not read.
See the first two notes for this important information.
I hope both the gentlemen will accept my great big thank you.
I have exactly nothing to add to their excellent discourse.





Work.

In the beginning of  the lock down period, when civilization and book commerce (I am repeating myself here) were put on hold, I decided it would be a good idea to go through the racks and see whether there was some stuff that needed work.
Up came these 8 spadroons that were bought some time ago and subsequently stacked and firmly forgotten.
That is the nice thing of having a collection: you will always find something new you totally forgot!  Yoh presents!
The spadroons were in various states of disrepair and needed cleaning and a good polish,  so that is what I did. For 2 months.
The blades were not the problem as most were in a quite acceptable state.
I could polish 2 per week and only 1 or 2 needed some more time. No, most energy had to be spent on cleaning the hilts. As half of the spadroons are French, these were at some point varnished, which is not something I generally have a problem with. Quite normal people in the more civilized regions of this universe did this often too in the beginning of the 20th century.
But the French ,,débiles'' had varnished right over the massive amounts of crud in the detailing.
And that is another matter altogether.
Anyway, the hilts are now as clean as on the day they were bought, with the blades polished to their original grade, which was a very high mirror polish. All of them retain much of their old skin and some minor pitting is still evident here and there.
Now, let's have a look at what I have for you.





8 spadroons.

Let us start with the French designs.

1. French Dragoon Officers 5 ball spadroon. Consulate and First Empire period.

See: l'Hoste - Les Epées - page 208 - fig 367.

Regulation ebony gripped hilt with most gild intact. High grade casting and chasing on the ornamentals.
The blade has some etched decorations but there is no evidence gild and blue were used.
The Sun mask on the inside of the guard can be seen also on the hilts of fig's 425, 427 and 428.
The sunflower ornament is the holding pin for the Sun mask.
The knuckle bow has another mask. (Green Man?)
Notice how some design cues were used much later on the hilt of a German export pipe back sword from about 1870.

















Numbers.

LO: 100 cm.
BL: 83 cm.
BT: 8 mm.
BW: 26 mm.
W : 616 gram.



2. French Officers spadroon with small sword style silver hilt. End of the 18th C.

See: l'Hoste - Les Epées - page 196 - fig 343.

Screw tang made it possible for some idiot to ,,enhance'' this very nice silver hilt spadroon.
He did an awful wiring and grip job and to mask that placed two equally awful ferrules on the grip.
This in turn screwed up the hilt. So I made a new grip with the right proportions and gave it a leather over rope cover with a new wire. No ferrules and no turksheads and I kinda like it this way.
Do not let the small sword style hilt fool you. The hilt has military proportions and is much larger than many a civilian small sword hilt of this pattern.









Numbers.

LO: 97 cm.
BL: 82 cm.
BT: 6 mm.
BW: 24 mm.
W : 521 gram.


3. French Officers spadroon or ,, Epée Uniforme''. 1787 - 1789 and Revolutionary Period.

See: l'Hoste - Les Epées - page 230.

Silver plated hilt and according to fig 402 it is an intermediary design with a-symmetrical shells. Very nice and crisply detailed helmet pommel. Many other examples have really badly cast helmet pommels and display rather bad workmanship all over too. My guess is that the moulds were used to exhaustion and so all detail disappeared. Buyer beware!









Numbers.

LO: 100 cm.
BL: 83 cm.
BT: 8 mm.
BW: 21 mm.
W : 527 gram.



4. French (?) Chasseur à Pied (or Chevaux?) Officers 1 ball spadroon.

To be honest I do not really know. I see many a British (Navy) spadroon with this reeded grip pattern.
There is an, I think Vikingsword or BladeForum, article in the notes somewhere about this one where Edelweiss tags it as a French Chasseur spadroon. Cannot find it in les Epées though.
Anyway, it is a nice sword. The grip is made from some sort of ivory but it is hard to tell what kind.
Not elephant tusk. That is for sure. That typical pattern is missing here. It is also a bit translucent.
My guess is it is some kind of sea mammal ivory. The beading let into the grip is also a feature one does not encounter much.
It took about 4 days of painstakingly picking out the dirt to get the hilt back in its original state. Do I have to remind you this sword is probably French and what those potato heads do with varnish an'stuff? No? Good, as I don't want to relive that episode again.
A small piece of the upper grip is missing. And the bough on the guard broke off at some point.
I have seen more examples where this happened and at the same spots too. I think the guard and the bough were cast as one, as I cannot find the slightest evidence of brazing on my example. These boughs were very slender in contrast with the more beefy guards, so I think cooling may have caused hairline cracks to form at the points where guard and bough join. It is then just a matter of time before the cracks open up because of strain. Add some rough handling or an accident and the bough breaks off.
Even with its defects this is still a very nice spadroon I think.

Edit: Edelweiss in one of his comments further down mentions ,,the creamy goodness'' of the mammoth ivory grip on one of his Eagles. Looked at the picture and indeed, mine displayes these same qualities. Creamy, without any markings, going from light cream fading into a very light pink with some light yellow streakes here and there. The grip of my spadroon was definitly made from the same ivory. Mammoth ivory it is.











Edelweiss's Eagle with mammoth ivory grip.

Numbers.

LO: 92 cm.
BL: 78 cm.
BT: 9 mm.
BW: 24.5 mm.
W : 580 gram.




5. Bavarian 5 ball spadroon. Maximilian I period.

Interesting example of this regulation Officers spadroon.
It is the only one here with a furbisher address stamped under the guard: ,, GROSS - LINDAU ''.
The city of Lindau seems to be interesting too. (See the notes)

It looks like the hilt was highly polished and then blackened to prevent rust. It doesn't look like a modern gun blue to me and also not like a natural patina. Too uniform. I like it this way as it makes a nice contrast with the gild Bavarian coat of arms in the guard.
An interesting fact is that it has a Solingen blade with the monogram of the British King George III etched on both sides. As the peen is okay and not fiddled with as far as I can tell, this gives good reason to ask some questions. Was the original owner a British Officer working in Bavaria? Or vice versa?
Or had the furbisher mounted a discount leftover Solingen export British pattern Infantry Officers blade under his unsuspecting Bavarian clients regulation hilt? My guess is that in the latter case the furbisher would have just sanded off the George monogram.
There was a purpose for it to be there it looks like.
But who knows?















Numbers.

LO: 97 cm.
BL: 82 cm.
BT: 9 mm.
BW: 25 mm.
W : 535 gram.



6. Swedish M1770 Infantry Officers spadroon. 1800's.

Very nice example of this interesting Swedish pattern, here with fixed shells. Much of the gild is still intact and all details are sharp and finely cast.
More on this one in the notes. Makes for some interesting reading.
Very fine number and it comes second in the Fatso Awards.











Numbers.

LO: 98.5 cm.
BL: 83 cm.
BT: 9 mm.
BW: 27 mm.
W : 625 gram.


7. British MK1 P1796 Infantry Officers spadroon.

I bought this one just 3 weeks ago. From France. It too was once varnished over enormous amounts of crud.
Luckily I only paid about a sixth of what this spadroon seems to be worth on Ebay.
Nevertheless, bile spewed during conservation made the paint come off the walls of my workshop.

MK I because this is the early type with the rigid shells. The hilt still has some gild remaining.
The blue is in reality much brighter and is of the very beautiful peacock variety. It almost hurts the eyes. Strange that modern cameras seem to have problems with blued blades. I really tried.
For the pittance I paid this is an absolute stunner. It also gets the gold Fatso Award, as it is the heaviest in this lineup.
Note that this model comes in various degrees of quality of decoration and workmanship overall.











Numbers.

LO: 94.5 cm.
BL: 79 cm.
BT: 7 mm. (in oval)
BW: 24.5 mm.
W : 638 gram.


8. British MK2 P1796 Infantry Officers spadroon.

Very nice example of the much derided P1796 here with the MK2 folding shell.
And with a good leather scabbard to boot. Think I bought this one from Pcay at Ebay.
Very nice completely intact blue and gild Solingen blade. As there isn't a trace of the usual gild on the hilt and the beautiful, deep, rust brown is very uniform, I guess the Officer who owned this spadroon ordered it so.
Very chique I think. That's why I left it intact.
This one isn't doing too bad in the flex scores too. Best of the bunch actually.
Note that this model too comes in various degrees of quality of decoration and workmanship overall.











Numbers.

LO: 100.5 cm.
BL: 84.5 cm.
BT: 7 mm.
BW: 24 mm.
W : 515 gram.





Conclusion.

All blades shown here came from Solingen. Even the blades on the MK1 and MK2 P1796 British Infantry Officers swords.
These Solingen blades were cheap, at least cheaper than the home product and they were made and exported in huge numbers all over the world. All of the blades presented here show flexibility in various degrees, with the most rigid surprisingly the blade on the British MK2 infantry spadroon.
It is not the design of the blades as such that is the cause of the problems I think.
Most blades here are quite thick under the guard and have decent width and wide fullers.
No, I am suspecting that the temper of these things is somehow below par.
It is not that they take a set easily. They do not.
But two blades of virtually the same design can have two very different characters. One more flexible than the other.
Whatever the cause, it is a shame as these nice swords deserve much better. They could easily have been real problem solvers. I have this idea that Solingen makers could have done more, but that doing so would somehow have cut into their bottom line. I cannot find another reason.
By comparing the blades I found 4 of them to be more flexible than the others:
The No.2, the No.3, the No.5 and the No.7. The latter has a puny oval sectioned blade with a narrow central fuller for the first 30 cm or so, the rest have practically the same backsword blades as the other very much stiffer 4.
The tip of the oval sectioned (UNSHARPENED) blade of No.7 will penetrate a thick walled hard carton shipping box but will bend during the effort to such a degree that I was afraid it might have taken a set. Luckily it didn't.
This one really stands out. The No's 2, 3 and 5 display the sort of flex one may find in many a Windlass blade. None of the samples here will do well in a penetration test. The blades, except the No.7, were not designed to do that. These are to some extent just light cutters and when sharpened will most probably do very well in that regard. Not cutting off of arms and such. They are too light to do much of that. Psychological trauma cuts to the face, arms, hands and upper legs is more their strength I believe.
So do not come on with ,,all spadroons are bad because they cannot do this or that''.
That's the ,,The Katana is the best sword in the world'' crowd shouting out their stupidity to the world. Some are bad. Some are good.
Same as with all other swords.
Except, of course, that even a failing spadroon still manages to simply look ever so stunningly glorious. (!@!)


Cheers.








Notes.

These first three notes are the most important:


Nick Thomas:

victoriansword.tumblr.com/post/185839764658/the-spadroon-is-not-a-militarized-smallsword

victoriansword.tumblr.com/post/121839032611/british-pattern-1796-infantry-officers-sword


www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10330
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spadroon
www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=87152
www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10330&page=1&pp=30
www.higgins-collection.org/artifacts/3457
www.navyhistory.org.au/officers-swords-of-the-royal-navy-a-brief-history/
www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16855

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Bavaria
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I_Joseph_of_Bavaria
www.62ndregiment.org/officer_arms.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1796_Pattern_British_Infantry_Officer%27s_Sword
www.fordemilitaryantiques.com/articles/2019/3/19/identifying-british-infantry-officers-swords
www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=156203


www.swordforum.com/vb4/showthread.php?116591-m1796-british-infantry-sabre
www.militariahub.com/the-history-of-the-manufacture-of-british-swords/
historycollection.co/historys-failed-military-weapons/3/