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Old 30th September 2020, 02:05 PM   #28
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fernando
Yes Jim ... a silversmith making silver hilts, among other silver works. Why thinking otherwise ?


Adding countless inspector poiçons to countless sword hilt makers, one can hardly pretend he has seen them all. Besides and convincingly, all countless pieces marked PAUL STORR shown out there have a unique layout, different than that in your briquet. The way i see things going on, i would take it as anedoctical that he would have developed a different cartouche for brass works ... just to defend my thesis.

The more extensive biographies that we find on PAUL STORR , the more distant stays the hypothesis that he engaged in copying and mass producing cast brass military armament.


Precisely Jim; what i said is that he designed (not made) this SILVER HILT that could well end up being sculpted by Paul Storr ... as quoted.


Well made points as always Fernando, and its always good to have opposing views. Naturally my suggestions are hypothetical, but based on the many years of going through material on makers etc. It was years ago that I got the notion (after seeing silver work by Paul Storr) that I thought that perhaps he might be the elusive PS in the cartouche on my briquet. My attempts at suggesting this to various antique dealers as well as other arms 'authorities' were summarily dismissed and quite honestly scoffed at. It was not until Bezdek that the most important note - of his ALSO being a hilt maker became key.

Remember that as late as 2010 I still had decided this might be Spanish colonial, probably because of the heavy, unfullered almost wedge section blade. In the blacksmith grade blades sometimes found on the frontier type espada anchas these are well known.

The position I have taken on the idea of an artisan who was working with precious metals, and a factory where facilities for casting and likely various fabrication of metalwork (as the Rundell's were also retailers with likely a spectrum of items). ...might have served for a contract of 'briquet' hilts.

Clearly with the silver and gold items Paul Storr became famed for, a more mundane event such as casting brass hilts in such 'contract work' in his earlier career would not be heralded in records of these very common and little documented weapons. That was primarily the point I was making in this tale of 'the lowly briquet' (hence the title).

As I had noted in previous post, makers working with silver who DID make hilts, often EVEN PLACED THEIR INITIALS ON HILTS THAT WERE NOT SILVER.

However not all silversmiths who produced fine silverwork made hilts. As such they would have been included in the STRICTLY controlled conditions of the governing officials and treasury.

While am sure that it would be tempting for a silversmith to create such a piece, there must be reasons why not more of the large number of silversmiths did not engage in these particular items. I would suspect that if they did, and each one who made a silver hilt one off, was then listed as a silver hilt maker, the volumes attending to records of these men would be impossibly profuse.

The reason that it was so difficult to find information on Paul Storr among sword makers and production is that in this industry he was a minor player but included among other partners who were involved in the business.
Even the most noted figures in various fields have lesser activities in thier earlier years which may not be considered salient in biographical material, in fact they may consider detrimental to that which they are noted for.

The clearly pedestrian task of casting hilts in brass for a seemingly minor contract in the earlier period of Paul Storr's working life would not be a landmark event in his biography of his obviously stellar career.

However, that an item such as this hilt bearing what may very well be his initials (as per the evidence suggested) would be remarkable, given the fact that these 'uninteresting' (as per your words) other ranks weapons have been largely discarded in nearly the same tonnage they were produced.
That these weapons became so popular that they were copied in effect by virtually most European armies and remained in use well into the next century is testament to their use as a tool as much as weapon .

However, their common rank among weapons has rendered them 'uninteresting' and therefore of little consequence in the collecting world. So again my purpose in sharing this now rather obscure sword is to illustrate the possibility of a most intriguing history which may be part of a much more stellar context in history.
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