Cup-hilted rapier
 

Adding photos of quite nice rapier with elaborately decorated cup bowl.
Total length is more than 120cm (47 inches).
Wire seems to be later.

Unfortunately there is no marks on the blade, nor the hilt.

Can you share more on potential provenance?

Interesting sword, qusko. I wish i could help with some precision; other than reminding that Spanish smiths (also) made these XVII century solid cups with (chiseled) decorations and motifs with trophies and busts (Wallace Collection for one). What i have never seen is how the cup bowl is fixed with its screws from the outside.


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Hi Fernando,

I have found some examples at http://www.thais.it/citta_italiane/f...ert/pag_05.htm

Some rapiers are described as North European, German ... in Spanish style.
Maybe that's the trace...

In terms of screws, I guess it was in use.
Some examples here:
https://vicentetoledo.es/sites/defau...rdapolvo_0.pdf

Also in the book of A.V.B Norman you have that fixing option (screws outside of the cup) described in hilt type 100 (similarly hilt 102, 104)

Decoration in that rapier is made with 2 techniques
- chiseling
- repoussing / boning

Please forget what i wrote about the fixation screws, as i used the wrong expression. What really happens is that cup bowls are usually held to the tang in two ways; either welded to the quillon rims or with two screws or rivets holding the bowl by fixing it to two interior arms.
What i actually meant to say is that i never saw these screws featuring such portruding heads, as being part of the decoration.


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Indeed not typical...

I've found some example with strange add on on the cup (on top of the screws)

Yes, a show off detail. I suspect that such example, like yours, is not a practical fighting sword, but one to adorn the attire of a wealthy owner. Would you agree ?

As Fernando well observes, most swords such as rapiers, small swords were fashionable accoutrements of dress, and as status oriented and representative of a mans honor and chivalry embellishment and decoration was important.

While a sword 'could' be used to fight, most often they were worn in a deterrent sense, to display the formidability of the wearer.

There are various methods of structure in cuphilts, but it seems the screws usually entered the cup through the bottom into the pas d'ane rings passing through the guardopolvo. There were of course two as here, but it does seem as with most weapons the character of elements such as screws depended on availability. Pommels too were elements often interchanged, and I have seen many cases where these are incongruent with the hilt style overall.

These unusual domed or the open ring seem like types seen in the locks of firearms of these periods to me (though I admit that is a lay opinion as I dont know gun works that well).

These swords were often reworked in their working lives, obviously especially if damaged, but clearly this had the wire redone. Just wondering if screws from gun locks might have been an option during refurbishing.

If i get it right ...
 

Jim, perhaps a significant fixing method other than the screws entering the cup from the outside and meet (say) the pas d'ane, is the one in that the cup is welded to the quillons. I assume such system is more seen in Portuguese swords, but nevertheless to be taken into account.
Currently, from the four cup hilts i have hanging in my wall, three have the cups welded to the quillons. Not counting with equal number in my archives, which i timely deaccessed.
Rings in locks of firearms are completely a different business. While fixing screws in sword cups serve basically on a permanent basis (except for sporadic maintenance ?), those in (flint) gun locks are more handy that vented head screws and serve to often unscrew to change the flint, whether worn or broken.

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Actually these were more what I was thinking of. While earlier than these cup hilts, these as types were surely still around.

Those rapiers of yours are amazing Fernando!

Ah ... i have a copy of that chart, which Michael posted here 15 years ago, approaching a gun screws theme. My Deutsch is zero, but i would bet the example i sign is the early version of the one i have shown above.


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Voila! :)

Fernando, Jim - thank you for all your answers.

To add to that thread, I've found some other not typical example, with the cup fixed by screws not on the top of the cup, but on the sides of the cup. Adding here to keep it in the same place.

Same system (as yours). Only in this case the arm inside (pas d'ane) is shorter.


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Not clear why but unless you took it, it looks to me like this picture has been altered or there is at least some sort of artefact in it (EDIT: not entirely impossible that this is an image compression artefact now that I think about it); there is a kind of blocky area in the picture right where the arm ends that seems to be a copy/pasted repeated bit from elsewhere in the picture (note the faint horizontal and vertical lines and the repeated bits of texture indicated by the arrows).

Maybe the other arm also extends beyond what we can see... Although the location of the screw still seems to be different.

Obviously an editing set up ...
 

... From what i infer that, my attempt to transmit the idea in an 'easy' graphic manner, was a failure :o.
Perhaps this way things are more clear.


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Well at least I now know I can tell a photoshop "from some of the pixels". :D

;)