19th century fencing foils

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by William V.

Thanks for the fast pictures Fernando...

Regarding the kings head: maybe there is some kind of forgery into this.
As you said, Weyersberg / Solingen was a well known name too: So why not copy the marking and change it slightly to be sure to get no legal issues?
Is just a wild guess, but with your permission I will ask at Weyersberg directly (they are really nice people) if they ever used this kind of marking (or know of a forger who did.

Regarding the "S": As far as I know, you are right. It stands for Solingen. By the way: Blades intended to be sold to a foreign country are (as far as I know marked with an "A", perhaps for german: "Ausland" which means "Foreign Country"). In addition to this, it is interesting to know that Klingenthal used the same symbol with a "K" (logically for "Klingenthal") in it

@ Jim: Always a pleasure to help

William

More excellent information William. I would never had known the 'A' might have meant that. The marketing and commercial acumen of Solingen was in a word, magnificent! This huge export machine overpowered locally made products even in Spain, and probably in many cases, France.

The use of spurious makers marks, popular wording etc. was well aligned for clients as well. The kings head was also used early by Johannes Wundes if my memory serves, and was a venerable mark by these times. It seems blades sometimes had numerous kings heads stamped in groupings, as many as four sometimes. In my thinking, this might have something to do with the numerous stamps used as hallmarks on silverwork, perhaps suggesting quality of that level? Just a thought for multiple stamps on regular blades.

There is so much historical data reflected in the curious markings and stamps we find on weapons, and that is why I hope to continue compiling more in these threads for future research. Using the search feature will reveal the most current data on these subjects.

All the best,
Jim