I have submitted an email request for information to the Oman National Museum. This is far outside my scope of knowledge and outside of a few German museums getting back to me once about a very rare NCO blue & gilt "damascus" sword, I usually get nothing but radio silence here.
As other boards on this forum deal with more ethnographic and non-Western based weapons, I would request any suggestions on academic professors, researchers, or other individuals and places to whom I can contact. (I dont blame museums for radio silence, they are far from glamorous and it is elements of the worst parts of public facing civil service, the politics of upper academia and having to follow the current trends culturally, filling out endless grant forms, having to appease your Patrons, and very little actual time getting to researching and exploring antiques)
I do not like to reply without images so the attached is a true mystery to me when it arrives. Saw it at auction, the hilt and blade interested me, but I did not bid. Saw it again some months later and I am quite superstitious in a 'small bits of fate' sort of way so I knew I needed to get it. Whether it is a composite or not almost does not even matter to the central mystery: the guard is of the bataille hilt style from the Ancien Regime through Napoleon, as is the shape of the blade (95cm by my estimates). However, the grip is horn, and the plate on the guard is of the type associated with superior officers, specifically the 6 flags. Image #2 is a half finished superior officer guard of a rare "Gothic" type I got and will one day have finished to be mounted on a NOS superior officer blade (not trying to pass off as truly original, but I've long wanted to take old unused parts and make "new" swords just for myself) for comparison RE the flags. The blade also appears to be one of the rare French types that is etched in a Franco/German style, and not blue & gilt. My current theory is mid century when they had that other fun period of changing governments like women change purses. The ship in the middle there is usually related to Paris.
Searching for answers in books & online has been quite a challenge. There is a non-zero chance it could also be for naval or marine officers. My strongest association is one of the Guard units around Paris somewhere between 1848 and 1853 for obvious reasons/ But there are so many different implementations of civic, municipal, gendarmeries, republican, royal, etc. that accounting for translations being slightly wrong, people mislabeling antiques, and all the various ways a single word change can make the difference between 2 different the Paris national guard, the Paris republican guard, etc. that until some sort of documentation or photos are found, I do not think I can fully ascribe provenance to this hilt whatsoever.
As said earlier, both myself and Mr. Jean Ondry believe there is a solid chance this is a composite, albeit an older composite. The blade is form correct though. Large guards like this were offered even into the 20th century though it seems weird that no examples pop up elsewhere. As an aside, it has me wondering in a regrettable way if many swords purported to be older than they are, such as belonging to the Napoleonic Wars era, are actually later creations and either through ignorance or outright malice, have all been slowly shifted towards an earlier provenance? After 4-8+ owners over a century or more, or sold by a relative or an antique dealer, it would only take a single person to misattribute the sword to an earlier era to make it largely permanent, and you would need to look at all of them with a deliberate focus of trying to prove they are not as old. I cannot speak any French and I do not wish to disturb the waters over on Passion-Militaria enough or even in France proper to ever make any public statements. There is, however, a fascinating world of custom and non regulation swords over there that is waiting to one day be uncovered and categorized more, just by looking at hilts. Last images are of various catalogs in the last decades of the 19th and early 20th century (image #4 is another unused guard I got that was unfinished, has what appear to be guide lines for some fleur-de-lys type of later chiseling, but has again appeared to be a complete mystery for provenance as it does not match hilts seen anywhere. I have a Swedish 1773 cavalry pallasch blade and should I ever find someone who can, I would love to have the hilt decorated and filled out with maybe a central elaborate plate mounted of some sort even just for a personal design, the tongue of this one is quite wide and long at the top so unless it was overcast and meant to be filed later, whatever pommel or backstrap it was to slot into was quite large)
Hopefully I can ascribe a provenance to this sword, I've no intention of selling it based on that or anything, but I find having 'story' swords to be good conversation pieces if nothing else!
|