Rare Rapier I.D. Interesting photos -- myArmoury.com

Morgan Butler

I have a rapier I'm trying to narrow down. (no pun intended) It looks 18th century. It could be english or german. My worst fear is that is a victorian repro. The blade is 32 inches and overall is 38 inches. The 'flame" style rear quillon rings a bell but I cant place it. Let me know what your opinion is. thanx

Morgan Butler · Posted: Mon 31 Mar, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject:

Actually I miscounted. I meant to say it looks 17th century.

Morgan Butler · Posted: Mon 31 Mar, 2008 2:52 pm Post subject:

I also want to add that the blade has very thick oval cross-section for the lower 7” of ricasso, the rest is of an uncommon configuration with thick central ridge reinforcement, and floral scrolls on the lower blade.

Allan Senefelder · Industry Professional

Morgan I saw this blade on ebay, we have a loop hilt small sword of early 18th century date with a similar blade in terms of the thick oval ricasso, but the dimensions on this sword are a good bit larger from what I recall than the usual 18th century small sword. I'm not sure the wooden grip is original, but the sword is plausible as what the seller dates it at, later 17th century. It reminds me a bit of a late 17th century military smallsword I used to own. There is some very good Victorian work out there but I have seen the sellers offerings in the past, he seems to know what he's talking about from the auctions i've seen, so I see no reason to dismiss it as Victorian just because its a bit unusual in style.

Doug Lester · Posted: Mon 31 Mar, 2008 7:23 pm Post subject:

Morgan, a very interesting blade. I'm just learning about swords and I have to admit that I'm not favorably impressed which what Silver would call "bird spits" but I'd agree with Alan that it looks more like a small sword than a full fledged rapier. It has the look of something to be seen with rather than to be used and it does have a kind of beauty, like a good home girl. What is the material inside the loops in the figure-of-eight guard?

Sean Flynt · Posted: Tue 01 Apr, 2008 7:36 am Post subject:

The front "flame" quillon and the decoration inside the rings looks very Chinese to me, but this piece doesn't look too recent. The separate construction of rings and quillons suggests modern construction, though. Except for the decoration, it reminds me of mid-20th century stuff from Spain. I wonder if this could be a western-style Chinese military dress piece of the late 19th century. The pre-WWII Japanese miiltary adopted some western-style saber forms but added distinctively Japanese decorative touches.

Allan Senefelder · Industry Professional

Following Sean's theory, it may still be late 17th or early 18th century, there was a fashion especially amongst the Dutch via the East India Company and the English for having swords made by local manufacturers around the Pacific Rim colonies, Java, China, India et al. in the European style but they tended to exhibit a little local flaire, wheather it be decoration, japaning or what have you, i've seen a number in museums, at auctions, and in private collections. The idea being to show off the "exotic" location of manufacture. This seems like a military weapon to me.

Morgan Butler · Posted: Tue 01 Apr, 2008 8:24 am Post subject:

Yes, that seems to be the ticket, I do remember something about a small trend in the late 17th century for hilts having asiatic quillons.

Morgan Butler · Posted: Tue 01 Apr, 2008 9:16 am Post subject:

I cant for the life of me find any examples of other "asiatic hilted" rapiers. If anyone has any please send them here.