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Old 16th January 2021, 07:48 PM   #11
Jim McDougall
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Location: Route 66
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I think a lot of misunderstanding exists in trying to establish not only types of swords as forms, their provenance and of course who made the swords we study. It must be remembered that the names etc. on sword blades were not always the actual maker, but often outfitters (retailers) cutlers (assemblers) and blade dealers who often ground and finished blades from producers. The producers were smiths of families who forged blades often in industrial settings such as Solingen, one of the largest and most formidable marketing machines of blades ever.

With regard to Toledo, and its stellar reputation, the following is of interest:
"...by 1561, the Royal court moved to Madrid, and Toledo began to lose its importance. The population dropped from 125,000 to 55,000 (1594), exacerbated by plague at the end of the century. Apart from that the sword was being replaced by the gun.
Toledo continued to make swords, but in 1664 a last surge of hyperinflation hit the country, and a financial crisis in 1680 ruined whatever remained of the Castilian economy. Artisans abandoned their craft, and guilds everywhere were dissolved.
So few native swordsmiths remained in Toledo that it suffered the indignity of haviing to induct foreign specialists.

By 1760 the visionary King Carlos III aware of how far the rot had gone, recruited from Valencia its only skilled sword maker, 70 year old Luis Calixto, whom he directed to bring to Toledo the few master craftsmen he could find.
In 1780, he established a royal manufactory in the outskirts of Toledo".

("By The Sword" Richard Cohen, 2003, p.115)


It seems one of the problems with establishing 'regulation' pattern swords s that by the very nature, official orders and regulations are the product of government and military bureaucracy, thus anything but accurate or reliable in far too many cases. Often orders were simply token or 'covering' cases for matters or situational records , and with weapons often already in use or presumed standard. Spanish instances seem notorious for this.

The Toledo situation reveals that blades were not being made much by the mid 17th century there, and virtually not at all by the 18th. By the time of Carlos III and IV, whose markings are most often seen on these military arming swords, who seem collectively termed 'bilbo's', it seems clear that the blades were German made, and the hilting by various armorers leaning to traditional designs of hilts in the Spanish manner.

To suggest that the huge volumes of these swords did not exist militarily, or were later contrived from spare parts ignores the reality of the Spanish sword circumstances. We know the 'Spanish motto' dragoon blades of the 18th century were made for Spain and mostly exported from Solingen to its colonies. I have known collectors who had large groups of these en masse from such shipments, as mentioned in "Spanish Military Weapons in Colonial America 1700-1821" (Brinckerhoff & Chamberlain, 1972). In this volume these swords are well represented.
In their time these swords were of course in colonial and rural settings in the field, and often refurbished with components at hand.

Regarding PETER KNECHT, the Knecht family was a well known group who began primarily as sword blade grinders from early 17th c., one member even engaged as such at the famed Shotley Bridge enterprise in England in 1687. By mid 18th c. they were primarily traders and dealers in blades in Solingen and many of their blades carry the 'Spanish motto' previously discussed, by 1770s. They prevailed apparently until mid 19th c.

The information on Knechts from "The Wallace Collection", Sir James Mann, 1962, pp.268,325. and describes these bilbo type swords,
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