[urbanspaceman]

During my inspection of those empty apertures on the quillon I began to realise that it had been soldered back together at exactly that spot. Look closely and you will see the solder and how it has spread into those holes. Maybe the maker's marks were sacrificed during the procedure.
I did exactly that same job on the smaller of the two Shotley Bridge smallswords in my collection; I had a sacrificial hilt that I chopped the quillon from. Obviously it was virtually identical.
The apertures here are on the re-attached quillon which may well be from another sword: is that nefarious enough a reason Richard?