The star is locally engraved (rather than stamped).
I know its tempting to imagine that due to the somewhat cruder look of this blade its not an industrial product. However even prior to the industriall revolution water powered trip hammers and grinders were the norm for forges in Medieval Italy and Germany. Some are still around, at least in Northern Italy around Belluno. There was no massive effort to refine the lines, fullers etc. on these trade blades, so they do look a bit crude. However, having handled quite a few of the single fuller and triple fuller patterns from the 19th century, the difference in profile to earlier blades from the 18th, 17th is quite pronounced. The 19th century blades, particularly this Kull pattern has a very flat profile with almost no lenticular cross section. Of course when you go further back the 15th and 14th century examples which very, very occasionally crop up (at least in takouba), the difference become even more pronounced.
See the reference below. The three marks in question are noted as 1847 (72, 73, 74). This is not bad as far as kaskara blades go to be honest!
From memory I think Kull may have been listed as a retailer and could well have outsourced production to multiple forges as his name and marks appear on a wide range of blades including military sabres.
|