Feather Pattern welded blade

[Jim McDougall]

You're very welcome Rand, I'm glad to be able to offer anything helpful on this very handsome sabre. There were many outfitters in India to provide dress and presentation weapons for British officers, many of them private makers and many such as Manson in Calcutta handled regulation patterns.
There were of course also such outfitters in Egypt and in Aden in Arabia.

Thank you Jeff for showing the clipped tip mameluke blade, which were indeed often seen on these. If not mistaken, this clipped point was favored on many German cavalry blades in the 18th century which of course ended up with British swords. In one reference book , "Schwert Degen Sabel" by Gerhard Siefert (1962) in a line drawing group illustrating terms for varying blade forms, such a tip is referred to as a 'pandour point'. The association to these flamboyant auxiliary troops seems unclear, but the blade feature is known on some 18th century French blades as well.

With these instances considered, it does seem distinctly a European favored feature and not typically occurring on Indian, Arabian or Mamluk swords. Since 'damascus' blades were not produced in the European blade centers (as far as I know that used this distinct clipped point, this blade is clearly an intriguing anomaly with interesting historical potential.

All best regards,'
Jim

[Lew]

To me the damascus pattern seems to have been acid etched I see areas where there are breaks or worn spots in the pattern. This may have been a European made to look like an Arabic sword. Notice on the center picture that the pattern comes all the down to the edge? The bottom pic shows a wide splotchy area where they got a bit sloppy with the wax the hilt has the same pattern on it and since the grip would be oval in cross section I don't think the pattern could be exact pattern the same as a flat blade. Still a very nice sword.


Lew