Please Help with sword identification
Hi there I've inherited this family heirloom and would like to find out any information I can about it I cannot find any marks at all on the sword any information anyone could give me would be a great help? I have two others that I would like help on too but this is the mail one.

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Re: Please Help with sword identification
James kilroe wrote:
Hi there I've inherited this family heirloom and would like to find out any information I can about it I cannot find any marks at all on the sword any information anyone could give me would be a great help? I have two others that I would like help on too but this is the mail one.


It's a classic P1796 Light Cavalry type saber with the tip ground off. I can't say whether it's English, American knockoff, or European knockoff without knowing more. The tip being rounded off like that is extremely unusual, suggests that it may have been adapted for some other purpose at some point.

Any history or provenance you can supply would probably help. Where does your family originate from, were any of them world travellers or antique collectors, military men, etc... that kind of thing.
Re: Please Help with sword identification
Jeffrey Faulk wrote:
James kilroe wrote:
Hi there I've inherited this family heirloom and would like to find out any information I can about it I cannot find any marks at all on the sword any information anyone could give me would be a great help? I have two others that I would like help on too but this is the mail one.


It's a classic P1796 Light Cavalry type saber with the tip ground off. I can't say whether it's English, American knockoff, or European knockoff without knowing more. The tip being rounded off like that is extremely unusual, suggests that it may have been adapted for some other purpose at some point.

Any history or provenance you can supply would probably help. Where does your family originate from, were any of them world travellers or antique collectors, military men, etc... that kind of thing.


Thank you for all your info,
As far as we are aware going back to my great granddad there from London any further back I'm not sure the families story is that it was a pirate sword but there's no proof of that that I know.

I've also got these.
Too smaller ones
The larger on is from around the 1870's but that's all I know there are markings but I can't understand them


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Not sure about the small one [ Download ]

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Re: Too smaller ones
James Kilroe wrote:
The larger on is from around the 1870's but that's all I know there are markings but I can't understand them



I do have better pictures but the file size is way to big.
A pirate's sword? Romantic, but unlikely-- the age of Atlantic piracy was over by the time this type of sword showed up. Privateering, on the other hand, did continue to some degree. This sword was primarily used by cavalry and to a lesser degree infantry, though, so it's fairly unlikely that this would appear in a nautical context.

My initial speculation is that at some point an ancestor of yours either served in the military and brought this piece home-- it would have been Napoleonic wars or later, so a four-times-great-grandfather perhaps-- or, alternatively, someone bought it either at the time or as an antique.

I'm afraid your other pieces didn't show up, if you were meaning to attach them?
From what I can see in your photos, the first sword is a shortened British P1796 light cavalry sword, the short bayonet is a British P1888 bayonet (not sure if it is MkI, MkII, etc.), and the long bayonet is a French M1866 bayonet for the Chassepot rifle. The engraving on the spine of the French bayonet will tell you the name of the arms factory that made it and the year it was made.
Thank you
Thank you for all your help

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