Philippine or Confederate?

[Jim McDougall]

Actually I see both sides of the 'story'. As a historian, I see weapons as a kind of montage of distinguishing features and elements which represent the entire working life of the piece. In many respects, its disposition after being removed from its working life, whatever the case, sometimes presents interesting subsequent history in who might have held it as either trophy or collected.

I entirely see what David is saying though, in that this seems more a case of deliberate defacing of an otherwise extremely attractive sword in the too often seen deception of 'innovative' sellers. The often crude and ersatz character of Confederate weaponry has encouraged all manner of contrivances labelling many types of unusual arms as 'Confederate'.

Sometimes these ploys are almost bizarre, as in this case. We can think of any number of tenuous speculations as to how a Filipino sword might have fallen into Confederate hands but even as a novelty, why would someone insist on placing their name and unit info on the weapon. One of the most typical aspects of actual Confederate arms as I have often read, is that there are seldom such unit or personal data emplaced on them. Obviously there are exceptions, but few.

I think David is right, and this defacing should be removed if possible without causing further damage. If these persons trying to create deceptive historical identity for weapons were only intelligent or skilled enough to at least KNOW something of the history they are trying to allude to, they might be more of a threat.....instead they are just vandals.

[David]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

If these persons trying to create deceptive historical identity for weapons were only intelligent or skilled enough to at least KNOW something of the history they are trying to allude to, they might be more of a threat.....instead they are just vandals.

That sir, is an insult to the Vandals!

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by David

That sir, is an insult to the Vandals!

LOL!! Good point, the Vandals got a bad rap with their name becoming synonymous with these expletive people.


BTW, does anyone know what these large initials F.S. stand for? It seems like it might have been for one of the insurrection groups or of that ilk.

[Battara]

Could it stand for Freuden Schilds, one of the early Vandals?

[Robert]

Unfortunately I have seen far too many Philippine edged weapons that have been altered in this manner with monetary gain the vandals [not the term I would normally use] only concern. It is my opinion that the information scratched into the hilt is not only misleading but a distracting eyesore that should be completely removed from this otherwise very attractive sword. From what I can tell by looking at the photos, if done carefully this should be fairly easy to accomplish without causing any excess lose or further damage to the horn hilt.
The initials I believe are most likely those of the maker.

Best,
Robert

[Jim McDougall]

I think quite likely as Robert suggests, these initials are for the maker as I have seen the same application at the same location on the blade on some espada ancha. The connections between colonial New Spain in the Americas, Cuba and Mexico with the Philippines being the far western segment of the Spanish Main relayed these influences notably.

It is always interesting to see the subtle similarities in some Philippine weapons to these Spanish colonial weapons of the Americas.