Keith this becomes more complex and intriguing as I work toward regaining traction in the research involved that you worked on over all these years.
It is interesting to see all these names associated with silver hilts in England, which are familiar to me through research I did years ago on silversmith Paul Storr.
I have a munitions grade briquet which has the distinct anomaly of being stamped with PS in cartouche on the brass hilt. This was a known touch mark of Paul Storr, a famed silversmith to the Royal Family. For many years many antique experts decried my theory that this could POSSIBLY be from him.
Then Bezdek came along, and he was listed as having been a sword maker!
Obviously, the suggestion would be silver hilts, but no such hilts are known attributed to him. It appears that he may have produced such a group of swords specifically for George III in the defense efforts in late 1790s, and copying the French briquet (there are NO known records of 'briquets' in British military swords.
The reason I bring up this anecdote is to illustrate the often convoluted records of these artisans, which ratherfalls hand in hand with the case of Shotley.
Remember, in the case of the blade trials perpetuated by Thomas Gill in the 1790s, where several makers entered examples to be tested. At that time there were basically only three British makers including Gill recorded....HOWEVER, there were examples submitted by OLEY !!!
This was bizarre, as Oley is NEVER included in references on British swords, and only noted with non specific mention in cases in some. Aylward (1945) is the only reference who delved into this esoterica.
It seems there are references to rolling machines, but I thought these were to rolling the stock for blades. The hollow grinding machines for grinding blade faces were it seems an innovation which superceded the fullering in stock removal of blades to both lighten and strengthen.
As you say, much more needs to be done to discover the origin of the hollow ground colichemarde blade.
I had never thought of hollow ground colichemarde blades only being mounted on English hilts, time to look deeply into Dean (1928) and some other sources,
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