Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
...On that note, Will I have a question for you:
You note numbering on the spine of a sword, and it seems I have seen suggested that often swords destined for East India Company service were often numbered in this manner (Garden & Co. ?).
I have a Reeves pattern 1821 light cavalry saber, which is numbered 111, on the spine. Would this possibly be a weapon in this category?
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Thank you for the kind words! Unfortunately I have not been able to research the sort of logistical and categorical internal record keeping as much as other people. Especially those living in the UK. If you are on the IASC facebook group there are some individuals I would recommend talking to on that.
The author of this website here:
https://swordresearch.org/SwordSearch/Landing.php is one I would strongly recommend, but I otherwise don't feel comfortable saying names due to the permanent nature of the internet.
As far as s/ns and markings go, I believe there are at least these following different variations:
-the various troopers inspection, factory, and government marks including unit designation when added
-internal serial numbers on private purchase officer swords with the examples I can think of as follows:
-Wilkinson starting in the 5000 range and eventually going into the hundreds of thousands (frankly anything above 60000 while finely made is probably more vestigial than anything else)
-I am not sure the exact dating of Pillin serial numbers, but 99XXX numbers on otherwise illegible swords appear to correlate to Pillin manufacture around the 1890s
-Robert Mole swords occasionally had numbers placed on the back that have a prefix of M EG M2112
with contracts to specific outfitters, I know Hawkes & Co (today Gieves & Hawkes) had a specific system but I am unsure on more specifics. An associate of the above website has been researching them, I would be glad to give you his facebook contact info privately if you'd like. For those, I see mostly 4-figure s/ns. I have a 1LG sword with a 3-digit serial number I have been told dates to around the 1860s or 1870s IIRC. I believe Wilkinson was usually the source for Hawkes but I have seen others. Hawkes, Hamburger Rogers & Co (today absorbed by Dege & Skinner), and Ede & Ravenscroft (rarely, I have only seen a few swords with their name on them and I am not sure if there is anyone more posh than they were) all have examples of Wilkinson, Pillin, and other blades so there was no 1-source. I am unsure for example if the Hawkes internal serial numbers were applied to any sword that entered their books for internal record keeping regardless of maker, or if they denoted a specific contract only by Wilkinson or if each maker had their own range, that is far beyond my skills to research.
I believe the markings on officer swords in India were sometimes done as part of the transit. EG if the logistics arm of the British army and Royal Navy was to be transporting men over there as a whole unit, then swords may have been marked upon arrival at the arsenals. But you can also find many Indian service swords without the ISD arrow, outfitters like Manton & Co of Calcutta with no markings, or swords belonging to British officers we KNOW served in India and the Northwest frontier without any markings either. Suffice to say I frankly have no strong theories either way. Maybe it related to the manner in which they travelled, personally by land or by sea? It might be possible that for ease of logistics, they sent their equipment ahead of them as part of the logistics chain like rifles, ammo, webbing, etc? I am just guessing at this point.
The only thing I 100% know is that the arrow with ISD means it was for certain in the British Raj arsenal/armoury at some point, whether it was just stamping it to make sure it was accounted for and handing it back to the owner, or swords bought and kept in reserve to issue when needed or anything else. I apologize I wish I had more information for you.
I have 2 Pillin patent solid hilts made for outfitter Phillips & Sons, they each have different S/Ns than normal with 4-digit numbers, both made extremely close to each other in time (early 1870s iirc), so