Non european blade on Napoleonic saber

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by Battara

Could the blade originally be Russian in origin? They did do laminated steel. I am having difficulty seeing if the inscription remnants are Cyrillic or Arabic.

If Arabic, then this could indeed be an old Ottoman shamshir blade reshaped for French(?) use.

If Russian, then from Zlatoust. Zlatoust weapon factory was founded in 1813. I have a book with the best blades from Zlatoust, see the picture I added. All blades from Zlatoust of this kind are very decorated. Ivan Bushuev is my favorite artist. On page 130 is a similar saber from Wilhelm Schaaf (1820), but it is not made of layered steel. The early blades from Zlatoust made of layered steel are not real, only a surface etching.
This is all I know.


The other book is from the German Blade Museum "damascened steel, history of a legend". Many different german blades made of damascened steel from 18-20th century. None of the blades is similar to this saber.