Posts: 1,973 Location: Nipmuc USA
Wed 02 Mar, 2011 12:17 pm
I am still hoping for an early spring here and for better light indoors.
Here are my eagles from the 19th century period. I have more pictures of these scattered about for more detail if interested.
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Our left to right are four English made swords, a slightly later German sabre then a couple of much later militia types with nickel plated blades, nothing really fancy there..
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The German sabre has some remaining etching. The two spadroons also have blue &gilt left with the five ball showing typical stands of arms with a liberty cap. The one far left is entirely foliage type decoration. All the light grips are bone except for the beaded hilt which is ivory. The other two sabres are steamed and pressed horn, rather than carved wood. Those have no etchings at all and most will regard the plainer unadorned swords as for junior officers and nco roles.
Also now new to me while reading through a book of the Ames Sword Company history (John Hamilton) is an early militia Roman helmeted shorty. I am still unsure if it was shortened, as we find these in a variety of lengths. This one the shortest (if sold that way) I have encountered. This one is probably from the early to mid 1830s but I have encountered similar Ames pieces with pre American Civil War Masonic etchings (ie the Hamilton example). Ames was a very early seller to various groups and lodges with even the
gladius style artillery swords being etched to the Masons and Odd Fellows quite early on.
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The patina is quite thick and I'll probably not strip the hilt clean aside from removing loose and impacted dirt but there are traces of the gilt plating a lot of these older ones had.
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The shell guard vs the
shield we see on a lot of these through the 19th century is shown in Peterson's American Swords book and that hilt just dark wood and an egg pommel, marked (iirc) to the Portsmouth (brain fade, it might be Maine) N.H. artillery.
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So this one is just a 21" blade while the one I'm posting below is 24" and I have also seen 27" and 31" blades with the Ames militia patterns. This one jst below is a 24" example but with the same cross-hatching and the shield type guard.
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Variety is the spice of discovery, really. I am also posting a couple of pictures of a very related example I really can't define as to who and when but it is possibly older than the other two above.
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A lot of what we see listed of these knight/Roman pommels can turn out to be one of a masive pile but every now and then, some rather scarce ones do surface.
Cheers
GC
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