[urbanspaceman]

Hi Jim. Thanks for your help here, I am much obliged.
The leather patch in my hilt will have been a working repair as the original linings were traditionally deerskin. I don't know how much of the basket was covered by the skin, the later Victorian complete covers may not have echoed the early ones.
Has anyone heard of the - much regarded as myth - story that the division of the pommel was not always into four and this was supposed to mean "No Quarter". Sounds Victorian to me, but you never know.
I might endeavor to persuade the Tyneside 'Powers that Be' to establish a section of our "Discovery Museum" devoted to the arms and armour of the area and get some of the 200+ swords they have archived and essentially never seen, apart from the five Shotley Bridge swords donated by Lord Gort of Hamsterly (adjacent to SB) and featured in my book.
You would not believe the hoops I had to jump through and the persistence required to gain access to them: it took me four months! The problem is that all those 200 swords are stored in the archives of our Laing Art Gallery as initially the Discovery Museum did not have adequate security to store armaments. Consequently, the people working at the gallery are Art enthusiasts; guns and swords are anathema to them and best forgotten. I can see their point but that is not why we pay them; and WE do pay them.
NB 216 swords have been catalogued with brief descriptions but I was told there are 900+ in total.
Loquacious you may be Jim, but garrulous am I.