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Originally Posted by fernando
Looks like it will be hard to determine that Paul Storr, on his own senses, went on producing Briquets, unless factual evidence is found out there; not just by association of ideas.
Whether Thurkle made silver (and other metal) hilts, these seems (to me) that were 'one of a kind' examples, not a production in numbers. Then thinking of Storr, a silversmith Guru; to make a (one) sword you need an atelier (workshop); to cast a number of brass hilts for an army contract you need a factory... and a different attitude, i guess.
On the other hand, while joining two (or more) letters in a cartouche of a certain shape may give an idea of a determined silver smith mark, this is a recurrent procedure; their "trick" to distinguish one from the other, is basically the detail within the cartouche form. Even rectangles may be seen "by the dozen"; Storr himself registered a few different ones.
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Fernando, thank you! That was exactly what I was looking for, examples of the 'touch mark' of the silversmiths. The rectangular cartouche enclosing the maker's initials just as I showed with the Thurkle example in my previous post was placed to illustrate the convention of doing this with silver smiths and in the time period late 18th into 19th and surely considerably beyond.
As you noted earlier, there is profoundly no way anyone could possibly be aware of all makers marks, touch marks, punzones etc. as there was not as much consistency as one would like to imagine. It has been said that as makers mark stamps wore out or broke, it was not necessarily the case that an exact copy would be the replacement.
In many articles on sword examples such anomalies as flaws in the punches or stamps were strong indicators of authenticity in examining individual swords, just as the case in authenticating mint marks on coins.
With the possibility of a silver smith such as Paul Storr handling a contract of brass hilts for government supply of munitions grade hangers seems heightened by the facts that he was a hilt maker, and he was indeed running a factory for his partner.
My idea has been, this is not a single sword made on a whim by a famed silver smith, but a contract of indeterminate number of munitions grade swords. The suggestions are that this type of hilt or in fact sword did not exist in British other ranks because of the confusing representation (as per Robson, 1996) of the so called Spanish pattern, the 'pioneer' pattern hangers shown in art of 1813,15 for artillery, seem to compellingly sate the case.
However, with the degree of inconsistency in government and ordnance protocol and procurement of the periods from 1780s through the Napoleonic wars, the notion of a singular contract of a number of swords such as this does not seem unreasonable.
The best evidence we have of such a possibility is the examples I have shown from highly reputable arms authors (Blair, 1962 and Wilkinson Latham 1966) which clearly show these brass (French infantry style) briquets as British.
The example in Wilkinson-Latham (1966) implies a name on the blade may be Trotter, an English cutler 1814-20.
Storr ran the factory 1807-1819.
If he oversaw such a singular contract, perhaps in special arrangement with the Crown (the Prince Regent was keen on military matters, indeed having a number of sabers made for his cavalry regiment)......does iit not seem possible Storr might have placed his 'touch mark' in these hilts, even though brass?
We know that Thurkle and others did so even on hilts that were NOT silver.
This hanger is not a single one off sword, but I think a survivor of possibly a defined number of these 'European' style briquets (not just French) that may have been made by Paul Storr, a silver smith strongly connected to the Crown during the Napoleonic wars period.
Thank you Fernando for helping keep this investigation fluid, as I know I am learning a lot, even if my theory ends up not being proven.