[Jim McDougall]

Fabrice, I finally found of a photo of a most unusual sabre I have had for many years and is basically of the M1796 light cavalry sabers. It is the only photo I have so I apologize for the poor quality.

What is unusual is that you can see the dramatically parabolic blade with this needle like point. The blade is a rod type pipe back which extends the full length of the blade, which was not characteristic of the M1796 cavalry swords of the time nor of course was this point nor the curve.

To make things even more puzzling, the stirrup hilt has a sharply canted grip, also atypical of these swords. This type of grip angle is something known on some Indian tulwars and some Tatar and Caucasian sabers.

Actually this sword was featured among a selection of variants of the M1796 light cavalry saber which was published in Denmark many years ago. As this was the first year of these regulation pattern swords for the British army, and as LeMarchant and Osborn were involved in evaluating select features, there were numbers of innovative ideas tried.


While the 'hatchet' point with heavy, slightly curved blade and the radiused tip on the final pattern served well for its slashing cuts.....there were some who favored the thrust and sharp points.


This saber has been regarded as perhaps either a variant or prototype for the early 1796 sabers, however in later years after seeing some flank company officers in illustrations with radically curved blades, I thought that might be the case for this one.


Whatever the case, it is unusual enough to have been included in that article as a variant, and to see your example here, it is most intriguing to look further into these type blades.