Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanspaceman
I wholeheartedly agree that blade decoration i.e. etching and/or engraving, was generally down to the slipper or cutler, who would want a blank sheet to work on; however, Klingenthal got away with it in abundance and despite that, there are some beautifully embellished blades that include their signature; so I'm not certain this can be a widespread rule.
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Regrettably again there are no hard and fast rules, as we see sword blades marked to J J Runkel (especially the earlier ones) with typical Solingen decorations mounted on late 18th Century British cavalry blades. Which indicates that some blades at least were shipped from the maker with (J J Runkel was a merchant, not a manufacturer) pre-existing generic decorations.
Then we have markings of quality like the Passau wolf and the Andrea Ferrara mark, which were commonly forged. I think the one rule we can rely on is that if the customer wanted it, then the Solingen smiths were happy to mark their blades thus.