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Old 19th August 2018, 05:02 PM   #13
fernando
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If there is only one paragraph (the one that i have read) written in Calvo's article concerning the subject, the "Boca de Caballo" quillons resemblance with a horse bit, such attribution is not his authorship but one of (quote) his friend Eduardo Jiménez.
Personally, from within my ignorance, i would opt for the shells resembling the front view of a horse's mouth.
We can read in a text posted in "Gran Capitan" forum that, these swords descend from the Espada para Caballeria 1650, with straight quillons ("Spanish Military Weapons in Colonial America"), and with a double shell, like those known as "Boca de Caballo"...; the shell, not the quillons configuration.
Apparently there as been an intermediary version (Tomás de Morla) in which the quillons started to appear a "S" shape.
As for the To mark, we could well believe that such mark existed, as the Toledo city control stamp. Whereas some smiths found themselves known enough to dispense such mark, such would be an acceptable possibility (José María Pélaez Valle). If we check through Wallace Collection we see several variations of this symbol, stamped in as many Spanish swords, and considered by the author as Toledo marks. This appears to be coherent in that, according to the same Perez Valle, each variation "could" correspond to a different period (year) of production, like in silver hallmarks.
On the other hand, the appearance of a To mark in an non Spanish blade is not to be rejected, as also happened with Spanish inscriptions in German (Solingen) blades, for purposes of better commercialization in the Spanish market.

Attached are XVII and XVIII century Spanish horse bits.


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