Non ethno sword with strange inscription

[fearn]

Hmm. I'm pretty sure it's not Dee's Enochian/Angelic script.

That can be found here

[Mark]

I think you nailed it, fearn. I flipped the pictures and followed the key that you gave. One side reads "Ace of Swords" (with 2 U's standing for W), and the other reads "[Sw]ord of Swift Winds" (I can't make out the first two letters).

The Ace of Swords is a card in the Tarot deck (my avatar is the Tarot Page of Swords, BTW). The Sword of Swift Winds just sounds like someone's idea of a cool name. If the sword is genuine, its too bad that someone defaced it like that. Maybe it can be polished out.

[fearn]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for doing the hard work! Looking at it, I think it's actually "Lord of Swift Winds" (that first letter looks more like an L). The sword is the symbol of the element of air, so that makes sense.

Now we can have the real argument

--the blade has been dulled and engraved. Obviously this detracts from its value as a "pure example of an antique type" (however you parse that). OTOH, this is part of its history. To what degree is it worth erasing the history of a weapon to restore it to an assumed "ancestral" condition?

Personally, I think it would be kind of cool to have a known ritual sword, but tastes definitely differ.

So--comments? What makes this more genuine? Getting rid of the engraving and sharpening it, or leave it the way it is?

Fearn

[tom hyle]

The engraving looks fairly nicely done (a little crude), and I don't think I understand why anyone would have a problem with it. After market engraving and decoration of blades is quite traditional.
The blade does look old, and it also may have always been a practice sword; sharpening it might be more a conversion than a restoration, but don't let that stop you
The hand guard does not look old. It looks to have been arc/torch-welded up from thickish sheet steel cutouts, and some bar for the annoes.

[Rather]

The engraving looks quite newto me, most likely done with one of these little engraving machines, normally used for drinking glass.
Maybe someone wanted to use the sword for one of these role play games. The dulling of the blade would also fit to this theory.
What to do with it? Difficult to say. Personally, I would try to polish it off, or at least try to stain the engraving to make it look older and more like the rest of the blade.

[fearn]

Yep, I was thinking Dremmel engraving tool when I saw that too.

Given the most active thread at the moment, perhaps you'd like to check the blade to see if it's magnetized, Eftihis?

Fearn

[tom hyle]

The edges look rounded and of the same finish as the other blade surfaces; why are we thinking they have been blunted? Perhaps they were never sharpened (common with old European military swords, which this could well be a blade from), or possibly they were originally rebated for practice use. Without handling the sword I can't tell. There's a strange looking area in the close-up of the hilt where the blade goes in; it could concievably be a place where blade outside the hilt was narrowed, leaving a wider part visible in the guard hole, but A/ There's a definite line dividing whatever the light area is from the blade B/ doesn't it seem likely that if after-market rebating was done it was done at the time of the hilting? So why do it after? Inexperieced workmanship? That could also grind so close to the guard and not mark it? and C/ If so, what's holding the guard on? (though I've seen European bayonets with the very feature I just described; tang down thru hole to the very edge of the air is wider than blade; originally made that way; why I don't know, and the guard held on by rivets)
I'm still really puzzled by the hostility toward the very likely sincere religious inscription. I'm not nuts about electric engraving, but it's interesting to see from a bunch that usually isn't that hot on re-doing/undoing.....This may not be my favourite engraving, but let me be very clear: it is NOT damage.