Hey guys. Hopefully someone here might be able to help me with this. Recently I've been doing a bit of reading about the Irish Confederate War. In particular the Battle of Benburb 1646.

Shortly before Benburb the Pope sent Archbishop Rinuccini to Ireland with Italian and Irish officers, and a large amount of money, ammunition, gunpowder, pike heads, muskets, pistols, cartridge belts, and swords.

My question is, if you had to obtain thousands (5000+) of swords from continental Europe in 1645, what would they look like?  I'm thinking that these swords would be a combination of old second hand swords, and newly made "munitions" quality swords.  Could anyone here share some images of swords which would fit this description.  Thanks in advance.

Jason

Many of the swords from Graz armoury would fit both the period and situation, you can see some in the pictures I took there recently:
http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=31563&highlight=

Hi Luka. Thank you very much for sharing your photos. I assume you were talking about the swords in the image I attached below. I could be (and probably am) wrong, but isn't this type of hilt usually dated to 1650 or later?

Jason

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I believe you are wrong Jason.  Here is a sword of the type you referred to which probably dates to 1616.

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?92409-17c-Walloon

And here is another which Hermann Historica dates to around 1630

http://www.hermann-historica-archiv.de/auktio...at59_a.txt

And here is another, of a similar type, also from around 1630

http://www.hermann-historica.de/auktion/hhm65...at65_a.txt

Other options you might consider are schiavone, and "Sinclair sabers". AFAIK both of these types were in use during this time period, though I don't know if they would fall into the category of "munitions grade".

Thanks for the correction Stephen, and for the images. I also wonder about the schiavona, and the Sinclair saber. Were complex hilts such as these cheap enough, and available in large enough quantities to suit Archbishop Rinuccini's needs? If so how about swept hilt swords, such as Arms and Armor's town guard, was this type still in use by 1645?

Jason