[Jim McDougall]

While Kubur is right, there were indeed early commercial contacts with England, and I have seen Moroccan sa'if s with ANDREA FERARA blades and we have seen later blades by MOLE deeper into the interior.

However as Teodor has noted, the motif and design of hits (the determinate factor as blades were diffused all over) is indeed 'Spanish' and not Moroccan. What is intriguing is the familiar hand 'nock' as seen on Moroccan sa'if.

My thoughts are that these forms, 'Berber' and guanabacoa (Cubano etc) are best regarded as 'Spanish Main' forms (thus Spanish colonial), and hilted in shops in these ports and entrepots in Central to South America as well as Cuba. .....which traveled as far as Philippines (as per findings in past discussions).

As I have mentioned, my example has a distinctly English blade (M1796 light cavalry) as I have an original M1796 and put together, the blades are an exact match (as Wayne showed in earlier discussion). Mine has been reprofiled but the fullers match exactly.

My example of the Brazilian espada with striated shell guard (as previously noted) has a British blade by Isaac & Co. (marked on blade back as with British convention in 19th c.).

My 'Berber' is also marked with MANUE(L) at the forte transversely as seen on other blades in these sabres with M1796 blades. Some can be read as MANUEL DE ……..rest obscured. This does NOT mean Morocco, but clearly an importer in the Spanish colonies in either Cuba or some other entrepot in these regions of Spanish colonization.

There were MANY surplus British M1796 blades in Spain after the Peninsular campaigns, and as well known many British blades were coming into both Portugal and Spain. As these campaigns ended, new patterns of sword were being developed in England for cavalry, so these stores of 'surplus' were either left, or sold off as required.
So YES...….plenty of British blades were out there, but I think these which came to Morocco were already mounted in Spanish hilts.

With other areas of the Sahara, it was much the same from Mali to Algeria and parts of Morocco to the French...….these French blades were common on many West African and Saharan swords. The troops cavalierly traded them off much as these Spanish troops in Moroccan regions did.

There is no doubt that many of these forms were 'found' in North African contexts, particularly Spanish Morocco...……..but the idea they were 'produced' there I do not agree with. I recall when I first began researching these about 21 yrs ago, and working with Pierce Chamberlain ("Spanish Military Weapons in Colonial America" 1972) he admitted he had no idea on these forms, but over time contacted other sources. It was then that he wrote me when finding many of these in Cuban context. I had found the 'Berber' forms in Mexican collections, and we even found examples with clear Philippine or Indonesian mofif. Some of these had Filipino inscriptions from insurrection events there.