Moroccan " pseudo-shashka"

[Jim McDougall]

[QUOTE=ariel]

Originally Posted by midelburgo

Nueva Granada, after independence, would rather buy items from England than from Spain. Actually, there exist customs list of what ships were carrying to the new country and bundles of machetes and machetes blades seem a common occurrence. From Great Britain usually.

I also have a Nueva Granada 1846 nimcha. I guess the machetes were ordered from the maker but never paid (Nueva Granada had continuous civil wars at the time) and the maker found an alternative market in North Africa QUOTE]



I am dubious about British origin. Brits usually manufactured blades of much higher quality and I would not expect them not to mark them with their own mark.

My guess it was a local Central American manufacture.

Actually British blades were not of especially high repute overall until Wilkinson advanced the quality just after mid 19th c. Even then there was always the ever present 'duel' with Solingen, and true, the British never used spurious marks in the Solingen manner, at least not in notable references.
The exceptions were Thomas Gill, Samuel Harvey, James Woolley of Birmingham whose blades were sound as they competed with Solingen in the last quarter of the 18th c.


Spain had no worthwhile production of sword blades after end of the 17th c. and even in latter 18th they depended on Solingen for sword blades. There was a Toledo works by 19th century, but again, very limited production except bayonets etc.


I have never been aware of sword making centers in Central America, thought there may have been pretty much blacksmith grade shops as in Cuba and some Mexican regions. There are numbers of such blacksmith grade espada ancha blades from Mexico.