Latest Mystery Sword
 

HI all, attached are scans of a sword I purchased last week. Stylistically it appears to be Eastern, but the blade is blue and gilt and remindes me of French blades. The blade is not Eastern and I have no idea as to whom may have used this sword. It is too light to be a military sword, there are no Cyphers anywhere so I can't attribute it to a city or state within the Austro - Hungarian Empire. I'm thinking it may just be a gentleman's "court" sword in a eastern fashion.

All the metal mounts gilt silver and are hallmarked for Vienna 1825 - 1866 (they're hard to make out). There is large amounts of white enamel on the flowers and inset real tourquois stones.

The scabbard was covered in blue rotting fabric held together with tape (I pulled this off). Once I removed the mounts I found traces of red fabric underneath them. I plan to recover the scabbard in red fabric rather than the blue.

All the mounts are also marked M&K. I have no idea who this is so I hope someone out there might let me know.

Comments and insights are most welcome.

Greg

That's a beautiful sword. I wouldn't use it even during the day it was made for the owner...it's just too extravagant!

blade in glass
 

This is a blade, to pass from father to son ( what a fine) :rolleyes:

Can you see any detail on the flags/banners decorating the blade? That might offer some clues.

I'll take some scans of the blade tonight and post them for all.

Cheers,

Greg

French "Mameluk" saber?

Where's Jim on this one? :)

I am no expert, but it looks to me that the general style of a saber is that of ottoman balkans, early XIX century(?), painted stones (or the real ones) characteristic of early iranian to late ottoman production, however usually relate to the region of Trabzon, however could appear on non-Trabzon swords as well.

I think there is no need to search the roots for this sabre in Ottoman Empire, while there are silver marks and stamps, which (as sabertasche wrote) indicates Vienna. If so, I suppose this marks are: oval field divided on three with number (might be 13) and surrounded by numbers of date, ie. 1839, 1834 etc, with letter "A" which was assigned to Vienna. This one is one of the most common, but maybe there is different one on your sabre. Unfortunately I couldn't find "M&K" signature - is it stamped on silver?
Above all of this, we can find many sabres like this in Austro-Hungarian Empire during 19th c., in many shapes. Just take a look at some Croatian catalogues if you can, where you'll find many varieties of such weapons, though more often their hilts are made with mother of pearl-like material. They were also used in Poland, but then sabres were made in style and shapes of karabelas, because here was a good market for such patriotic weapons, used by polish noblemen to their national attires. We've got some of them in my museum too, and one of them is with such blue stones on the hilt as well.
As to the blade, it's beautiful but common blade made at the beginning of the 19th century, but could be a little later after 1810 aswell. Balde like this are usually associate with France but it seems to me they were produced in other countries as well (Russia?, Germany?). Sorry Mark, but knowing such decoration, it would be great luck if there were any signs on the flags, so I suppose this won't tell us anything :(
Regards!

Sorry, my fault for just looking at the pictures without reading the text :).

The use of blue stones for decoration was very popular on Hungarian and Transylvanian swords. I agree with Michal(difficult to argue with him anyway: he always has the right answer!) that the Vienna markings nail the origin down to Austro-Hungarian Empire. I just think it is more Hungarian than Austrian.

I agree completely with Michal, this is a 19th c. example Ausro-Hungarian officers sabre, and as Ariel has noted, most likely Hungarian. It seems to me that many of the Hungarian example sabres carry these very light, often asymmetrically mounted blades, as well in contrast with the heavy, baroque hilts and mounts. I recall always thinking these were rather 'off' when I saw them and of thinking they were badly matched in the way the blades were mounted. I have actually never quite understood why these blades were so thin and light, however they are clearly intended as dress sabres rather than fighting swords.It also seems to me that the Austrian sabres were inclined to have heavier blades that were consistant with the hilts in which they were mounted, though that may be a broad assumption (no pun intended :)

As noted, the Ottoman influence on sword styles was well known in Eastern Europe for hundreds of years.During the Napoleonic campaigns in Egypt the Mameluke style hilt became popular as a military officers sabre form for not only the French and British, but other European armies as well as later in the U.S. The form remains that of the traditional sabre of the U.S. Marines.

Best regards,
jim

Wow, guys, I think I've found a great forum :)

The hallmarks are clearest on the hilt of the sabre, a circle, bisected. the lower half divided into 2 equal portions. The top segment has a 13 in it. Above this mark is a "A". The left side of the mark is a 1 above a 4. On the right side of the mark is a 8 above a 0 - 1840?. Directly above this hallmark is a M&K.

The engraving appears to be scribed. There doesn't appear to be any detail in the flags except that they appear as swallow-tailed.

So far I've oiled the blade as there was a patch of active rust near the tip. I took off the blue scabbard fabric as it was held on with common office tape. As I mentioned there was pieces of red canvas like material under the mounts which I assume was the original covering. I plan to reglue and cover the scabbard and make it complete and clean again.

The sword mounts, I've sprayed with Windex glass cleaner. This has a light solvent which cuts through dirt, grime and nicotine. Windex also has a very small amount of ammonia in it which cleans the crud off the gilding without stripping the gilt off the silver.

I'm using a soft tooth brush to gently scrub off difficult areas. I going very slow as I want to preserve as much of the enamelling as possible.

Hoepfully I haven't offended anyone with my conservation methods. The sword is FILTHY and the scabbard fabric was rotting and smelled of car urine. I've kept it - sealed in a zip-lock bag but it had to go.

I want to thank everyone for thier help in interpreting my new sword.

Cheers,

greg

So as I guessed. It is probably 1840, and letter "A" means Vienna. Still don't know what M&K means :(

Thanks for kind words - hey I'm not inerrable! Thanks for more strictly indication on Hungary as a place of origin, while I was wander on Austro-Hungarian Empire without clear purpose ;)

regards

Hi Greg and welcome.

Is there anyway to show the entire blade? Is it shaped like a shamshir or a British cavalry M1796 ?

All the best
Jeff

P.S. Did I meet you in W.L.?

Thanks for the welcome Jeff. I haven't had my coffee yet so I don't know where W.L. is. We may have run into each othe at the HAC shows or in Kamloops.

I just had my coffee. Is W.L. just north of 100 Mile House and just south of Quesnel? (You just know all the the Forum memebers are on Google Earth trying to figure out where W.L. is :D ). If we're on the same page, yes, we've met :)

I got promoted out of that territory shortly after our meeting and was unable to followup our initial meet.

Looks like your interests have expanded beyond just Brit Cavalry like mine.

Greg

Hi Greg,

I tried sending an e-mail but it doesn't seem to have worked. Yes we met when you came up to Williams Lake, its great to see you here. It seems we both have strayed from our original interests. I look forward to seeing more of your posts.

All the Best
Jeff