[Jim McDougall]

The espada ancha is probably one of the most under researched sword types in the collecting world, and surprisingly ubiquitous, yet virtually going unnoticed. There has been little published on them, the first known reference being "Swords of California and Mexico in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" by Arthur Woodward in 1946.

In 1972 "Spanish Military Weapons in Colonial America 1700-1821" by Sidney Brinckerhoff & Pierce Chamberlain , included them in the outstanding reference which has become the standard reference on Spanish colonial arms.

Two brief articles by J.Hanson, and Bill Adams came later, but nothing else until Lee Jones published his concise and most informative article here, now in the forum archives.

I have been intrigued by these unique swords of the frontiers of New Spain and American Southwest virtually my entire life, growing up in Southern California. My hope was to do a comprehensive study on these compiling research and collecting which has covered well over five decades, and to augment the few but valuable articles noted.

While this was published by the Swedish Arms Society at the Livrustkammeren in Stockholm, in thier Centennial Yearbook, which is of course in Swedish, Staffan Kinman, the director, kindly presented the entire article in English.

The work continues, and I recently found a shellguard example (attached) which is yet to arrive. As noted earlier by Mark Eley (again my sincere thanks to him for his response) these had a close connection to the 'cutlass', from which they evolved as discussed in the article.

Presently the entire article will hopefully join those held in our archives so those interested might be able to read through it. ...this is pending.

I look forward to knowing of anyone else with interest in these Spanish colonial swords, and comments and examples.