Old Spanish Colonial Sword-Curious Blade

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you Keith! I appreciate the support as always, and honestly dont expect much with my loquacious soliloquys, but I write them anyway. It is indeed lengthy pondering, and my writing things out is simply the assembling of hours, days, weeks of intense research and my way of trying to comprehend it all.

I know you totally relate as your field of specialty on Shotley Bridge and English sword making with the mysterious grinding wheel machines of the darkest corners of this history is incredibly esoteric. With this its hard for others not as deeply into these things to follow or catch up, and often in our areas there is not the level of interest.
But we keep going as you well point out, often returning to a perplexing conundrum after time, perspectives appear that might have been clouded before. Also new information and resources surface, especially as readers out there finally come forth.
Hopefully its all the constructive understanding shared to the benefit of others who share our interests.

[Jim McDougall]

The more I look at the striated designs on these shell guards, as well as on the perpendicular guard on this example makes me think they are from the latter 18th century (as in this example) but in first half 19th century with the larger bowl styles. Perhaps the distinct 'bowl' form was toward 'cutlasses' as this type of hand protection was notably present in sea going edged weapons.

It seems that the 'guanabacoa' (near Havana) Cuban forms of 'machete' had quite a range of variation of course, and some had these striated designs on guards. The 'shell' guard was of course popular in Spanish hilt designs as the cockle shell was significant in Spanish material culture.

While this example has been perplexing with all these variables, it is good to see it with new perspectives.

The blade remains a mystery......but I dont think its British...perhaps a 'blank' ? from Germany, but the elliptical fuller seems atypical for earlier than 19th c.

[Jim McDougall]

Looking further at the guard orientation on this, the seemingly popular striations on the guard reflect the Spanish colonial influence, while it appears possible that British officers spadroons (c.1780s) with these kinds of guards might have also been in mind. Attached is 'five Ball' hilt design of 1780s which became well established, note the orientation of the crossguard. While this design was most popular, the extended guard often had other designs, mostly openwork vegetal motif, hearts and other elements. It would not seem far fetched that this style using the striations of shell guards would be out of place in latter 18th century Spanish context while aligned with the British influence. Also, we know the shell guard forms became popular in Brazil, and that in latter 18th into 19th the Portuguese and British were allied.

As far as I have known, in the nearly 30 years Ive owned this, there are no like examples. As noted, the hilt styling reflects the familiar 'hand nock' near pommel as well known in nimchas of North Africa, as well as the hilts of the shell guard espada (cutlasses?) of South America and Gulf colonies.

It is also worthy of note that the inside langet of this example and the shell guard versions are shared, a feature not seen on other colonial swords of this period, perhaps further aligning this example with the shell guard cutlasses.