Posts: 5,981 Location: Birmingham, Alabama
Tue 06 Dec, 2016 7:52 am
Welcome! You have some variety of military spontoon (French: esponton). We have a related thread that will give you a good idea of the basics:
http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=316494#316494
Yours is special because it has the fancy brass plaques. These are often 18th c., but something about yours suggests the Napoleonic era to me, and I wonder if maybe it's some kind of guard's spontoon or leading staff of the late 18th or early 19th c.
You can see plain spontoons (no cross bar or barbs) in French illustrations of ca. 1740.
Here's an example at auction that appears to be in the same family as yours:
http://www.cornettedesaintcyr.fr/html/fiche.j...f=1&r=
That one might even have some brass on it, but it's hard to tell.
In any case, all the spontoon information in the other thread should apply, with the additional mystery of those brass discs.
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