Merry Christmas and welcome aboard.
Belgium used French fashions. The French used French swords. For a moment, disconnect the location it surfaced from what the sword is. Concentrate on the sword first. I have a 1730s French marines hanger that surfaced in Tennessee. Would I assume that there was a French battle in Tennessee in the 1730s? Or simply log it as what it is.
You have IDed it but then question what it is?
As far as I know, their were no Belgian military actions in Vietnam. Might it belong to the Hanoi Belgian Embassy? Or, might it simply have traveled there as a collectible?
The Shadow knows
Cheers
GC
- Thanks for the feedback
- I currently only identify it as a Belgian sword, I cannot determine exactly what year it was made, late 19th century or early 20th century. Another thing is that in my country (communism) there are extremely strict weapon regulations, meaning I cannot import anything of a lethal nature even if it is just a small dagger like the Kabar. Therefore, this sword is really difficult to bring into Vietnam, even from smuggled sources.
- So the mystery here is that I don't know whether the French actually used Belgian swords in Indochina or not,I bought it from a family that I learned had family members who worked for the Nguyen Dynasty, the French governor of Indochina in the 1920s. But they didn't know much about the sword because it had passed through many generations, after buying the sword and one day I looked up the information to find the year of birth of the sword, I suddenly realized it was not a French sword thanks to the pattern on the sword's hand guard, it took me a month to know it was a Belgian sword but I didn't know exactly what year model it actually was. With their wealth, France certainly could not lack swords to buy from Belgium, and the Belgians could not participate in colonial Indochina either.
- As for the blade, because it doesn't have a fuller, I don't know if it's a ceremonial or combat sword. However, someone just told me that it's a combat sword with a pipe-back blade. Now the mysteries I need to solve only revolve around what year model it is and what year it was produced, but why a Belgian sword is in Vietnam will probably forever remain a mystery. The first time I saw it, I naively thought it was an 1822 model sword from the Napoleonic era. Now I know pipe-back blades are not popular in France and they still use fuller groove on the blade.
- Sorry if there are some confusing words, English is not my mother tongue. Please ask again about the areas you do not understand (if any).
Cheers.
