The Alexandria family of swords with Type XVIIIc blades is pretty well known. They all have wheel pommels (some faceted, and/or some with recesses, some not) bastard sword grips, and straight guards typically with down-turned tips. Clive Thomas and others have documented these in several great articles.

My question: do we know of other swords with that same configuration (not just the blade type) that *didn't* pass through the Alexandria Arsenal? I can't recall any, so I'm turning to the hive mind for help. :)

Hmm, good question. I'm sorry I have nothing to contribute, but I really hope some of you other fine gents do! This is probably addressed in the article on this site, but do we see them referenced in the art of the period. I know you cant definitively put an EXACT type to a depiction, but do we come close? I'm not trying to derail from the original question, just trying to gauge commonality of the type I guess.

A&A calls their towton sword a type xviiic

Hello Chad,

Have you read the Park Lane 2018 article by Clive Thomas called the “Harriet Dean Sword”?
When taking about swords of this type in a group he says “Overall, around 20 members of the group are known. Some of which are only identified from old photographs. About half the known examples are currently in the Military Museum in Istanbul.”

Then he goes on to describe 4 swords currently in other collections: the MET sword, Leeds castle sword, Harriet Dean, and the Philadelphia Museum sword.

However I believe all “swords of this group” have Alexandria inscriptions just by the way they’re discussed.
You might want to check with Clive Thomas as he would be the best person to ask and I’ve seen him post on this forum before.
Hope that helps.

Todd,
I think I have that article and have read it. That and other articles just got me thinking about whether swords of this configuration were made for anything besides these tributes/donations. I need to go back and re-read the articles I have to see if any of them include damage that looks like it came from use. If not, and if there aren't swords of that configuration that didn't pass through Alexandria, I wonder if we're seeing a family of swords purpose built for those donations.

there's at least one XVIIIc (of slightly unusual form) in the "das schwert" catalogue, there's also a particularly broad bladed later example in the Dresden rustkammer.

the only other one I can think of is this one in the met, which has always flashed up a little caution about the pommel, something doesnt feel right about it:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/32429

those are the closest, but not quite a match.

It may be blasphemous and somewhat treading on Oakeshott's toes with size 10 steel tocapped boots, but in many ways, the closest match is the Castillon-A group, in terms of pommel and cross forms, and extremely wide blades, even though they're normally considered XVIIIa's.

This might be another specimen, where you might (barely) get away with assigning it to type XVIII c:

https://sammlung.nationalmuseum.ch/de/list?detailID=158831

James and Michael,
Thanks for the examples. I thought about making the post title more clear, but feared it would be too long. I'm really only interested in swords of the Alexandria family and not any other swords with Type XVIIIc blades. So wheel pommels, straight guards with downturned tips, bastard length grips *and* XVIIIc blades. :)

James, I do agree there are some similarities among some of the Castillon swords. I'll have to look into those more. Thanks!