Dear All,
In the case of the free imperial city of Strasbourg, it appears that the sword of the executioner was a special order of the city to a blacksmith. Therefore, the richness of engravings on an executioner's sword would likely rely on the relative 'importance' of this particular city (or region or 'baillage' in french) at the time (XVIIth Century), rather than the money available to the executioner. This could explain why there were both richly engraved executioner's swords actually used for beheadings and more simple ones.
