Posts: 1,973 Location: Nipmuc USA
Sun 14 Feb, 2010 10:00 pm
Hi Michael, the two shorter ones are kind of different.
The folding guards are lifted to the upright by hand, there is no automatically deployed example I know of. Some fold flat up the other direction we generally see. Some are a simple leaf spring, others are a button or ball with a spring behind them. Some require pressing on the ball or button to release them when closing.
The one with the downturned guard was sold through Roby, of Chelmsford Massachusetts. The guard is rigid and not like the push button releases seen on some spadroons and officer swords. The only reference I have found for that 241/2" bladed type is shown in the Flayderman/Mowbray book of the Medicus Collection. It was most likely a post civl war militia item but no one else has come up with a better explanation. Roby (the man) is an interesting story in and of himself. The sword is German made and the etchings include a motif including arrows and crossed bows. A discussion elsewhere was fairly comprehensive in nature.
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96704
The one far right is an everyday 1864 Ames nco and I'll attach a couple of comparison shots.
The short one audience left is possibly an earlier hilt on an early 19th century blade quite like the Rose nco pattern. The blade is of cast steel, which differs from the Rose blades. A brief of some I have discussed elsewhere follows.
Bear with me now and I would/will be able to show anyone interested in person. It is a cast steel blade. Yes, cast steel. Now where did I read that? I know its here somewhere. Some pages into the Bezdek 1812 book, I find my way past other's possibly fulfilling the contract beside Rose. Tell me I'm wrong and dreaming. Daniel Pettibone, Ezekial Chapman and Josiah Nichols patented a cast steel process in 1802 (wait for it). Pettibone then shows the process to Nathan Starr in 1804.
Pettibone goes on from there to the Springfield armory. The experience there with Pettibone's sword development failed in inspection because of poor welding between the iron tang and steel blade. he was in Sprinfield from 1807-1811. During that stint he was also inspecting (as a fed) Rose swords.
1811 sees Daniel in Boston. Pettibone delivers cast steel cavalry swords on contract. An army agent asks in Boston preceding the 1813 cavalry contract, just what would Daniel's swords offer (ciphering loads). That conversation is a blank except no one knows if it was curved or straight, nco or cavalry and if it had one or two fullers. The U.S. Ordnance then buys the cast steel license in 1813 and then again in 1817. Pettibone produces multitudes of other items, such as his producing just about anything and the 1802 process for cast steel and joining parts goes on again. Apparently well known for pike heads.
So, that's a lot of words for me to simply say I don't know who might have been responsible for this one but the resemblance (blade wise and ball pommel) of what a good many seem to have been making beside Rose and possibly Pettibone.
So, the sword itself is quite possibly a marriage of old and new parts at that time but the overall result is quite like the Rose but diffrent in that the hilt shape and gilding points to a more senior officer piece. Let me see if the Rose article pages will attach. The hilt on mine is more of a mid 18th century look but the form persists through at least that century. The blade is pretty exacting in its dimension regarding the similarity to the Rose nco, including about six inches of sharpened back edge.. A pattern I had been watch for over a long period. Like the Rose pattern, the hilt is flat on the wear side.
What may seem real irony here is that the majority of these finds were incredibly economical. One pattern I guess I am still looking for is the Starr nco examples. there were several variations on that theme as well. Like the other early American variants, they all have quite short blades. The time period between the American Revolution and the American Civil War are my primary interests of swords and the country's growth. The eagle pommels are probably my most studied interest and focuses mostly of the early 19th century examples.
Cheers
GC
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