XIX centry sword grip. help needed -- myArmoury.com

Lucas S

hi,
there is lot of XIX century european swords with special skin used to bound the grip. skin is covered by very small grey beads.
does anybody know what skin is this? in english language is usually called fish-skin but in polish language we use word "jaszczur". it means saurian. it's not the same like in japanese swords! ray skin from samurai swords has bigger beads surrounded by smaller ones. on this skin all beads are the same size. shape of these beads is different too.
maybe this skin is machine made? but if it's skin from the fish, what fish is this? or what reptail is this skin taken off?

help me please if it's possible to buy skin like this or leather with the surface very similar to this one.

i need it to repair old sabre.

thanks for any help,

Lukasz

Luka Borscak · Posted: Sun 20 Sep, 2009 7:14 am Post subject:

I think it's probably shark or ray skin.

Lucas S · Posted: Sun 20 Sep, 2009 7:32 am Post subject:

i think it's not shark or ray skin. on the picture from the left: shark skin, ray skin, skin from the grip of sabre. skin from the grip is much regular.

Thom R. · Posted: Sun 20 Sep, 2009 10:43 am Post subject: Darkie Charlie

Rayskin, sharkskin fishskin shagreen. It is all rather confusing and people tend to be a little sloppy in their use of the various terms to describe the grip material. Furthermore, over the course of a couple of centuries various different "fishskins" or "shagreen" were sourced and used including both rayskins and sharkskins. In general though the 19th c British swords (which yours looks to be) used a particular type of sharkskin from Dalatias Lichae, aka, Kitefin shark, aka Darkie Charlie. Unfortunately this particular shark is now endangered. There appears to be some other close substitutes out there........... however as to where to source a skin for a new grip I only know of a few leads. You might try contacting Pooley Sword in the UK as they do all of the refurb work on officer swords these days. tr

Lucas S · Posted: Sun 20 Sep, 2009 11:00 pm Post subject:

thanks,
i have found some pictures of this shark and it has skin similar to the skin from the grip. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons...a_head.jpg

actually the sword on the picture it's not the same as mine. i have prussian saber from 1852 and other one form 1855. on the grip of one of them there are small pieces of skin similar like on the picture.

i will try to make similar texture on the leather.

Michael Harley · Posted: Mon 21 Sep, 2009 1:30 am Post subject:

Just hazarding a guess, but I think you might find it's skate skin, taken from the edge of the hide rather then the central strip so favoured for Japanese swords.