Fantastic Robert!! Thank you!
What a beautiful sabre . I saw this in my 'travels' last night as I searched for examples or evidence of any sword blade with EIC markings. This one is unusual as the blade motif does incorporate the logo. There is a conundrum with this one though......Wooley & Deakin were only in business with as that partnership for the years 1801-1803. It seems there has been disputing evidence to that, but cannot recall particulars.
The main thing is that you see the rampant lion at the top of the arms. At this time, EIC was still using the quartered heart bale mark, and in about 1808 began using the lion. Even then, its transition in use was rather slowly adopted.
I would suspect with this sword's blade as evidence, that Wooley and Deakin as partners clearly must have existed as such either later than 1803.....or more likely, the lion over the arms was a regular component of those arms and adopted as the logo as noted.
With officers, these swords were private purchase, and as the link attached by Ibrahiim shows, hilts often had EIC features, and the blades were of course highly decorated as seen here, just as those to regular officers of the British Army.
What I am trying to determine is if the rank and file weapons, or even the fighting weapons of officers if EIC, were stamped with either bale mark.
These marks were of course 'property' markings, and would have been placed only on 'issued' items. However, as seen, the firearm sector of equipment with its higher value in importance were indeed marked.
Back in about 1996 as I was researching EIC markings, I communicated with Mr. Harding as he was preparing to release his books first volumes.
In those conversations he indicated to me that the EIC did not mark sword blades, only firearms (including of course bayonets) .
I had not thought of this until going through Egerton and saw the entry (not illustrated) of a sabre blade with EIC marks and from Deccan. I estimate this would have been from the time of Seringatam (1799) or in the next decade and before the transitional confusion with these marking conventions.
Richard, thank you for your notes on this accompanying title, which is far more affordable and available than the huge 4 volume set, which is also horribly expensive! I appreciate the information that the book excludes information on swords, which prevents trying to pursue this by this reference.
It about 2010 there were rumors that Mr. Harding was researching to add a book on EIC swords, which would be exciting, but nothing has materialized.
Perhaps this thread will suffice on the topic in lieu
in the meantime.
While it appears that no blades are marked with bale marks of either logo (or the more rare flaunched heart version)or at this point known, we do know that in many cases there may be acceptance marks or stamps.
There seem to be variations of Devanagari script or other such markings which might identify a sword to use in India, we do not know if these blades supplied to EIC were marked or recorded into arsenal stores
It would seem that only after the Mutiny (1857) and the end of the EIC, with then markings EIG (East India Govt) did such administrative methods come into use.
Richard, actually the British government really did not have ownership markings other than the BO (Board of Ordnance) and arrow, which were used up to post Crimean War. As far as I have known, while these were on equipment they seldom appeared on arms.
Mostly the weapons had inspection stamps, both edged weapons and firearms. The guns of course were typically marked TOWER on the locks and the crown in the earlier years, but that is a whole other area .
Thank you again Robert and Richard, I really appreciate the help on this, and hope we can continue this research. Somewhere out there I just know there must be a sword blade with an EIC bale mark!
We know the Dutch VOC had 'em