It's not much...



I am almost certain this is a hornet, or some kind of bird, otherwise a forge mark of some kind , that dha with the fuller I think is a "metropolitan" style of the late? 19th century

blue the mandau is in previous post, my kora did arrive and here it is with its period appropriate brethren though I actually think the kora and smaller khukuri are from the early 19th, maybe before british, and the armory khukuri from the late victorian ( late 19th)

 
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Well, I either did something very stupid or very smart. I bought all 3 swords from the guy with the prop swords. I did some more research on UCI, where 2 of the 3 swords came from, and it sounds like they were bought out by Warner Brothers some time before 1957. They apparently provided props for All Quiet on the Western Front. It took a whole weekend of research to figure out what the other two swords are, but I think I've identified them. Whether or not they're real or reproductions will have to wait until they come in the mail.
$T2eC16VHJGgFFm6UqJkpBSYBdZGzV!~~60_1.JPG

$T2eC16RHJFsFFSIVuwj,BSYBdqRr1g~~60_1.JPG


The first on is I believe a model 1889 Prussian cavalry degen. The grip is actually made from a very early kind of plastic. There are no markings on the blade other than UCI. There are two kinds of m89 degens out there, government issue and private purchase. The govt issue ones would have inspection marks and whatnot on the blade and the grip would have two bolts securing it. Private purchase ones are usually unmarked and vary widely in quality depending on what the soldier could afford. They're usually lighter and less sturdy than the govt issue ones, usually made for dress rather than combat use. The one I bought was probably the private purchase of a rather poor soldier judging from the quality. Bummer it probably wasn't a combat weapon, but I wasn't planning on using it on any cavalry charges anyways. I'm pretty sure it's authentic and not a repro.

$(KGrHqYOKpMFJI(LnVYIBSYBilK1p!~~60_1.JPG


This one literally took me all weekend to figure out. I'm pretty sure its a model 1840 Spanish light cavalry saber. This one doesn't looked to be marked other than WB on its spine. This must mean Warner Brothers bought it rather than UCI. I'm on the fence as to if this one's a repro. You can buy a repro of this model for 40 bucks, but the brass on the guard looks quite tarnished so it's an older repro at the least. However, it looks like the scabbard was painted black at some point which was done to sabers used in World War I.
 
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I found a few Spanish language links about this sword, and it looks like if it's legit there should be a "manufactured by" etched into the side of the blade like this (this one's a slightly different model, hence the difference in grip shape):
1840-11.jpg


Now, the pictures from the auction are extremely blurry, but I do think I detect some writing on the side of the blade. It could just be scratches or glare or me convincing myself there's something where there isn't anything. I put a red square around where I think the writing may be.

 
hmmmm , we will see, but my eyes say your chances are good-- even if they are scratches they would be an indication that the marker was polished off for whatever productions it was involved in, a good sign in any case-- but I bought loads of crap when I first got into this :D so either thing could happen
 
Yeah, if you stare at something long enough you can convince yourself you see stuff that isn't there. It's funny, after buying something off e-bay I spend hours staring at the auction photos and messing with photoshop filters to try to look for markings rather than just waiting 4 or 5 days for the dang thing to show up.

I think there may be writing on the other side of the blade too. I brightened this picture up a bit.



What has me concerned the most is that big ugly hex nut at the tip of the pommel. It's not uncommon for swords of this era to have the grip secured by a nut at the end like that, but that nut just looks too modern to me.
 
the problem with antiques is that there is no universal petina, an object kept in good preservation can look as good as brand new , like the tower of london armory for example-- they have many arms that look incredible and perfectly preserved
 
Plus these mid 1800's swords were often nickel plated so there might not be any patina at all. Further confusing the matter is that in some armies you'd have two swords- a combat one and a dress one. The dress one might have a fancy looking scabbard and hilt, but the blade would be made from light, cheap metal since they were never meant to be used. And even many of the "combat" swords were never sharpened. They'd usually only be sharpened right before the unit deployed, but in many instances they were never sharpened even for combat.

It sounds like a ton of military surplus swords were sold off for next to nothing in the 1930's. After WWI they weren't considered antiques or collectibles, just worthless obsolete technology.
 
Woohoo! The Chassepot bayonet arrived today and it's given me a mystery to mull over while I wait for my other stuff.



Looks like a regular Chassepot bayonet from a distance. But usually the spine has the arsenal and year manufactured which mine doesn't have.



There's a maker's mark on one side. It's pretty poorly stamped but I think it's supposed to be A C with a set of scales in the middle, which is the maker's mark of Alex Coppel of Solingen. They started making swords in 1871 and produced on and off until the 1950's. Here's what a nicer stamp looks like.

AlexCoppel.JPG


So it's a German made blade. There should also be an inspection number on the crossguard, but there isn't. Here's the other side.



The serial number is on the crossguard. If it was French military issue it should start with a letter signifying the arsenal it came from. Mine has no letter (unless it's hidden under the pitting), so I guess it's from some other military. Plus on every other chassepot bayonet I've seen, even ones made by Alex Coppel, the serial number is on the same side as the maker's mark whereas mine's on the opposite. I have no idea what the B with the circle around it means. Other militaries did use these bayonets, I just have to figure out which one used this one.
 
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very very cool stuff, german steel is among the best especially for that period being 600 to 2014
 
That brass handle sure looks like the same brass handle on an american made m1 long bayonet i used to have. One of the Bomb stamped ones. Even the profile of the blade and fuller shape are the same. The guard is different and I dont remember it being that much recurved at the tip and its edges were not sharp. Mine looked like it was broken and forged back together which was very odd. Nice piece Blue! I can definitely see the "a c" and remnants of the scales in your photo.
 
Thanks! This kind of bayonet was apparently super popular for about 50 years and just about every country copied them for their own rifles. They even sold them to civilians as boar hunting spears. Just from looking at pictures I'm pretty sure mine was meant to be mounted on a Chassepot rifle and not some other gun. I read that after the Franco Prussian war the Germans took a ton of these weapons as part of reparations.
 
blue lander said:
What confuses me on these sabre-turned-moroccan blades is the exaggerated curve at the end. Isn't it more curved then you'd expect in a sabre?
Click to expand...

My understanding of the back-curve of sabers is they are designed never to stick in the target when you swing at someone from horseback, since a stuck blade would either be pulled out of your hand or would pull you off your horse.

So my question is not why is the curve exaggerated on the moroccan blades, but why isn't it more exaggerated on other types of sabers. Might be because the same kinds of swords were issued to infantry as well, or for ease of manufacture, or dueling when off-duty.
 
Yeah, time to buy more peg board I guess, because I certainly don't seem to be stopping with the sword buying... in fact I already need more space so I can store my kaskaras and Takouba outside of their scabbards. The chemicals they use to tan the leather are bad for the steel, plus they collect moisture that causes rust.

davidf99 said:
My understanding of the back-curve of sabers is they are designed never to stick in the target when you swing at someone from horseback, since a stuck blade would either be pulled out of your hand or would pull you off your horse.
Click to expand...

They've been arguing for hundreds of years over curved vs straight sabers, both have benefits and weaknesses. Like you mentioned, a curved sword won't get stuck in your enemy. It also causes nastier wounds. But a straight sword requires less training to use and allows you to apply the speed of your horse to the blow.

The main advantage of a straight sword is that it's scarier. Cavalry charges only work if the infantry they're charging at panic and break formation. If they stay put or manage to build some fortifications, most horses will stop rather than charge through. They found a horseman charging at you swinging a curved saber was less scary than a horseman charging with a straight sword pointed at your face. It didn't matter which one was more effective at killing you, only which one was more effective at making you crap your pants and run for the hills.

So since straight swords are better for charging but curved are better for skirmishes and cavalry-on-cavalry melees (although that's debatable too) many armies tried to make a sword curved enough to swing but straight enough to stab. Or they'd give their heavy cavalry a straight sword and the light cavalry a curved one. But if you look at some of the final "made for actual use and not just dress" cavalry swords from the early 1900, many of them are straight. The US 1918 cavalry sword designed by George Patton is basically just a straight pointy rod with no cutting edge at all.

The history of cavalry charges and swords in general for the past 300 or so years is very strange. Once infantry had rifles they could mow a charging cavalry down before it even got close. It seems like they kept doing them past the mid 1800's purely out of military tradition. Every once in a blue moon a charge would suceed because conditions were perfect, and that was enough to convince military leadership to keep doing them.


Edit: I should add this is a western european perspective. They seemed to keep making cavalry charges work in eastern europe up until wwII.
I guess the question I should have asked about the moroccan blades isn't why they're so curved, it's how they're so curved. If they're made from old European sabers, where did they find such curvy ones? Or did they bang a little more curve to them when they were "converting" them?
 
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Sword number one arrived!



First impression is that this thing is light! The blade's deeply fullered and tapered so it feels weightless. It has very a nice flex to it, too.



The rayskin is worn through in a few places revealing the wood underneath. You can have stuff like this replaced but it's probably not worth it for a less valuable model sword like this one. Pretty much everything is as I expected Here's the only "unexpected" part.



The edge is utterly destroyed. It's like this for the whole upper 2/3rds of the blade. I assume this is sword-on-sword damage inflicted on it from its life as a prop sword rather than any actual battlefield damage. It's probably too damaged to be worth trying to sharpen out so I'll just leave it this way.
 
yeah I agree more than likely prop use damage, still a decent find, later next month when my mandau arrive I will post them here , I decided to spring for some from the netherlands where most of the authentic pieces were gathered


http://www.trocadero.com/101antiques/items/1127472/en1.html

that one is from ontario, but it is the best one I have seen offered, after I pay it off i hope to have a shrine ready :D
 
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