[Jean Thibodeau]

[Rechinul Ro]

hello ,

some new informations and pictures like i promise

lenght = 74 cm

[Rechinul Ro]

[Chris Goerner]

[Rechinul Ro]

[Jeff Demetrick]

Thanks for the better pictures Rechinul,

The fuller is fairly crude not likely a product of Solingen. There does not appear to be a T spine (see below). This blade is probably a blacksmith product impossible for me to date or localize. Chances are it was made near the area it was found. The shape of the blade as well as the handle do indeed suggest a Hunting sword.

Great piece
Jeff

[Shayan G]

Every once a year or so I forget my rule of "don't say you're certain when there's still a chance you're wrong" (i.e. never claim to be certain). Well gents I sit corrected, coulda sworn about that spine yesterday but closeups show otherwise. Apologies!

[Rechinul Ro]

[Rechinul Ro]

this is the dagger that i found near the sword

http://arms2armor.com/Bayonets/grms8498.htm

German model S84/98nA for Mauser k98

[Rechinul Ro]

some new opinion ?

[Rechinul Ro]

i sell the sword , the topic can be closed ,

thankyou all for helping me

[Craig Johnson]

While Rechinul has had a successful sale and the piece is not under discussion I though I would add some info I have collected since this discussion started.

I was intrigued by the discussion of this type of dagger above and decided to pursue some of the meaning behind the use of Rugger to describe this type.

In this I was greatly assisted by an expert in Medieval German languages and the use of etymological procedures.

The word almost certainly originates from the verb “Rücken” which means back/spine as a noun and as a verb implies a moving forward or together with an aggressive component. i.e. as in a chess move or to move the fight forward.

The derivation from “Rücken” to “Rugger” is due to the dialect of the southern area of the country. The Bavarian region in specific, where the ck sound is pronounced with as more of a gg.

Thus one could make an argument that the term “Rugger” for this type of knife would carry the meaning of a stabbing or assaulting weapon and we could translate it as “fighting knife” and be reasonably accurate to the meaning.

Eytmological breakdown for Rugger:

“Closest Modern” Rüge/rügen – A reprimand / to reprimand.

Or Rücken/ rücken – the ‘back’ / to move.

Common Germanic verb stem: cognate with ‘rock’ in English – to move violently back and forth.

All German occurrences are related to the concept of ‘back’. In Swedish we get rygg = ‘a bend’ or in English ‘ridge.’ The noun ‘Rücken’ (Messer-rücken) in German is used also for the ‘spine of the blade.’ All of these can be related to the ‘bent upon itself’ notion – to return is to bend or go back – and so forth.

Middle High German: Noun - rücke, rucke, rück, ; rüegge, rugge = ‘the back’, also:
Protection, cover, to be reserved/ to reserve, and a portion of armor which protects the back. Verb rücken, rueken = ‘to move to another place’, in the case of weapons = ‘to draw.’

Best
Craig

PS: Side note the same word “rugger” is seen in a few references in English in the later years of the nineteenth century as slang for a rugby player.

[James R.Fox]

I'm glad the sale was made, because my copier broke and I can't load pictures of mine. I own a Kard, the smaller verson used as a mail piercer, and the back is about3/8" wide at the hilt.The point is re-enforced too, so it will really tickle your ribs.

[M. Oroszlany]

Hello.

James, may I ask you to give me some further info on the Kard you own? I'm mainly interested in the location it was manufactured / found and an approximate date of manufacture (and possibly a picture if you had your copier fixed). Also maybe some further info on the class of weapons named kard, as google didn't come up with too much info. Is it the arabic weapon this wikipedia article speaks about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kard ?

Explanation of my interest: The hungarian word "kard" means sword in general. During history hungarians had quite large exposure to turkish influence, so it is more than possible that the hungarian usage of this word is a bastardization of the original arab / turkish meaning. Being a hungarian myself, this has tickled my interest and would like to find out more about this.

[James R.Fox]

Hi-Mr Orozany,Kard is also the Persian name for a mail piercing dagger used in the Middle East.The Persians named it because the were the best weapon smiths in the Iran-Indian area. The weapon can be found in George Cameron Stone's book "Glossary of the Construction Decoration and Use of Arms and Armour". My copier and scanner still aren't fixed, sorry, but the book is profusly illustrated. My kard looks exactly like a small-(12 in blade) Kyber or Afgan fighting knife or short aword. It has a t-shape blade with no hilt and tapers to a re-inforced point for forcing through mail links.The sword version runs to about26-28 in.The back of the blade is always very wide, that on my knife is 3/8 in at the base. My knife is an exact copy of the knife illustrated by Mr Stone in his photos. It was made by Windlass Steelcrafts about 1990 and has a bone grip and a peened tang.I hope this helps. Do get Mr Stone's book, it's available through Museaum Replicas sometimes, where I got it and I am sure Amazon can get it now that it's back in print.This is such a totally necessary reference book that I am totally astonied that myArmoury doesn't flog it like they do Mr Oakshot.(hint,hint) The are too many unidentified weapon questions on here that Mr Stone already answered in the 1930"s.Mr Stone's only hiatus is he didnt know about Wootz Steel, as those lazy archeologists didn't start digging up the furnaces and crucibles untill the 1970's when George was dead, and had given up on writing.

[M. Oroszlany]

Hi and thanks for the prompt reply.

In the meantime I found out that the hungarian word indeed comes from persian / arab. That would seemingly imply that the word was in use in the arab community in the timeframe between the 7th and 9th centuries. It seems quite unprobable that the same type of weapon was called thus, if it was made specifically to counter mail (also, wikipedia dates it to the 18th century). My conclusion after consulting an online dictionary is that originally the word was probably used in turkish / arab to describe a wider range of bladed weapons. The meaning either got narrowed down to mean the particular weapon you own later, or possibly is still used in arab in the original meaning, and the name being attributed to that particular kind of weapon is a western thing.

I'm sorry if this qualifies as off-topic discussion (I'm not a lingvist by the way).

Also, I was about to pick up several books on the subject of medieval warfare and arms anyway, I'll make sure to include the book you recommended in my list.

Regards
Michael

[Sean Flynt]

Thanks for the research, Craig! I've wondered about that for a long time. By coincidence, I'm trying to figure out how to a turn a backsword blade into rugger (the main question to be answered is whether the fore-edge of the grip will be unreasonably narrow if I carve the tang out of the blade--the back should be fine.) But your research makes me wonder if "rugger" is simply the German equivalent of "backsword" especially given the linguistic link between English and German.

So...when are you going to make one of these?

[Sean Flynt]

More inspiration:

[Peter Johnsson]

Craig,

Thanks for the word tracings!

One comment on the Swedish meaning of "Rygg". It does not mean bend, but rather "ridge" or "back" or "spine". It is the back of a knife blade, the "keel" (english?) of a roof top, The ridge of a mountain range, or the spine or rather back of a human. There is a verb that build on this word (rygga), but in the meaning of "pulling back" rather that rocking back and forth.

To me it seems that Rugger would be a hint at the hefty spine of these knives, more than anything else. That is my personal guess, anyways. Because of their narrow width, the thick spine looks even more prominent. The thickness does not decrease much down to the point on these blades. The actual point is often a equal sided triangle, or even broader across the spine than the width of the blade, inviting some fancy and inventive cross sectional geometries.

The medieval swedish term, "ryting" that is used to describe something soldiers brought forth to hack asunder the spear hafts of the opposing side, seems to indicate a sturdy chopping weapon. I have not learned of any more detailed description of these weapons or the term. I still guess they share some similarity to Hauswher or Rugger knives. To my knowledge, "Ryting" does not have anything to do with "back" or "spine". It is a word whose exact meaning is unknown to me. Medieval Swedish is filled with strange words and odd sayings (to a contemporary swede). It is heavily influenced by German.

[James R.Fox]

Sirs-From Sean's photos it looks like we are still discussing knives or short swords with very broad spines and re-enforced points. And as I said the short sword version (Kyber or Algan knife) Is a cutting as well as a stabbing knife. Since I have to hire a technician to fix my scanner , you are just going to have to take my word, or check out Georgs Cameron Stone on knives, which has photos as well as descriptions.You need the book, and I was not kidding when I said I thought myArmoury should recommed it. It's priceless in this area of discussion. Untill further notice, I consider the rugger to be the German for the moslem weapon kard.(Remember,moslems rules the area for centuries.) The meaning of the word is probably something like rib-tickler