After some discussion and revision, this is the end result of my commission with Michael 'Tinker' Pearce for a Baselard dagger. We probably stretched the historical envelope a bit, but we felt a few liberties worked well within the basic Baselard structure we started with.

No doubt most of you know of Tinker Pearce, and some of you probably own examples of his highly sought after work. Tinker covers many cultures, periods, and is not averse to interpreting historical examples. He is in fact one the best, and a nicer man you won't find. A real sincere, smart, but down-to-earth gentleman. We have a special Holbein being planned for our next endeavor.

Here are his brief numbers and some notes of interest on this piece:

Quote:

Hi Jon, 8-1/4 inch blade, 5 inch handle etc. Handle is Lignum Vitae rather than cocobolo; I found a very nice piece and thought it was a little more special than the cocobolo. The scabbard is a very thick, rigid leather- almost twice as thick as I normally use so it is quite rigid despite the metal fittings.

These are the pictures Tinker sent to me for final approval, I hope you enjoy them. My answer was a resounding yes. It's own it's way to me as we speak.

Jon

---

 Attachment: 67.39 KB



 Attachment: 97.67 KB



 Attachment: 68.52 KB

Other examples of Tinker's work can be found here:
http://tinkerswords.com/

Jon

Great work! Thanks for sharing with us!

It doesn't look much like a baselard, but it is a nice dagger.

Remember the term 'baselard' takes in a lot of territory, some of which don't look like baselards to me either. mediterranian examples can actually have no upper or lower guards at all- but there is little doubt that the people of the time referred to them as baselards. Some baselards have narrow tangs. Some have full-profile tangs. Some have metal guards some have wooden ones. Some have double edged blades, some single-edged. Some fullered, some not. Many historic terms like 'Baselard' and 'Sax' have as broad and inclusive a meaning as the term 'Bowie Knife' does today. If you took the scales off this one and added more rivet-holes (and aged it a few hundred years) it would look a lot like some examples in my reference books. It would look almost nothing like most of the others. That's OK with me. They aren't all the same and even someone looking at the examples I referenced might have a different opinion than I do about how much they resemble each other.

By 'technical definition' this is a baselard. By precise historic details? Probably not, but as Jon said that wasn't a primary goal here. thanks for the order, Jon, and for posting these photos!

I also have to say Thanks to myArmoury for being here... Fabrice's posts and others have been a great education to me; I have never personally gotten to handle a baselard with an intact handle and their research and work have given me a better perspective on the details and variety of these and other historic pieces!