Hello Manolo and thanks for replying.
Yes, I remember this discussion about cup-hilts and it was my mistake to use that term. What I meant was, to my knowledge, even the clamshell and bi-valve guards seemed to have disappeared by mid-19th c. The later espadas seemed to resemble more of the so-called D-guard style with plain wood grips or the more fanciful pieces with quillons of serpent heads, horse heads carved from horn. Gone were the disc-like guards and even those with the separate bars bolted to the hilt had disappeared. The later espadas were headed for their transition into the modern machete. Thus, I used the wrong term (cup-hilt instead of clamshell), but meant the earlier form from the period of 1700 thru first quarter of the 19th.
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