African sword?
 

A friend of mine brought me this item and wanted to know what it is. The blade and the grip are made from one piece and there are to plates of horn riveted to the grip. Length of the blade is 42cm, width is 5,5cm, weight without the scabbard is 674g. The sword is rather heavy and very solid. The leather scabbard has copper mounts.
My first impression was Africa, but as I am absolutely no expert in this field at all I hope to get here some informative comments
Regards
corrado26

Scabbard stitching is not African or the guard. I do not think African, it looks Spanish colonial to me but I know little about that area. Nice rustic piece.

I'm with Tim 100% on this one. Spanish colonial. The crosspiece looks spot-on to a naval dirk that I have that I suspect is Portuguese/Brazilian. Here's the old thread, the dirk in question at the top above the British ivory hilted piece. The horn grip resembles those found on espadas and that Brazilian cutlass I mention so often... :shrug:


http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...5&page=2&pp=30

Some other things we can surmise is that its at least mid-19th based on the nice aging/patina to the brass/horn. The nails holding the grip together are blacksmith made/early. A side sword perhaps for a mounted or foot soldier?

Thanks for these very helpful answers - my friend will be very pleased to get to know where his sword probably comes from.
corrado26

nice sword, i also thought 'spanish colonial' when i first saw it. crossguard is much like my 19c espada, sans finger ring....

Thanks, Wayne, for coming in on this one! A perfect example of the type of cross guard I was referring to. Glad you posted it and I didn't have to spend all day finding a similar example!
Mark

de nada;

the full sword for the record:

Corrada, forgot to say that the construction of this hilt is classic Spanish colonial, being one piece blade/hilt with flat tang with horn slat grips 'sandwiching' the tang. Cool piece!

http://www.sonsofdewittcolony.org//a.../espancha.html

Some good source material.