I agree whole-heartedly with the premise that these swords were private purchase for officers of the "light horse" corps, but I think the jury is still out as far as to whether these lion-hilts were all made in Europe and exported to the states. The excellent article in the Man-At-Arms magazine studied numerous types of this exact sword and did extensive research (which was backed by Norm Flayderman) that perhaps earlier swords were European-made, but that the Philadephia craftsmen soon came into their own in the latter part of the 18th century. The article had several examples with Phila silversmiths whose names appear on the hilts. Likewise, it was widely known that solid brass hilted cavalry sabers were discouraged in Europe as it was found that blood or sweat made holding onto the hilt difficult in battle. Never-the-less, we see Prahl carrying on this tradition of solid-brass hilts in the later eagle-head swords. Finally (keep in mind I'm going by memory as I don't have the article in hand) the author noted that brass, although not easily accessible, could have been manufactured in small quantities here for private purchase swords (less common after all) and the cost of shipping the brass hilts from over-seas would have been cost-prohibitive as it wasn't valued over-seas. He made several other astute points which I will review when I have time. Then there is the primativeness of the pieces to consider, resembling their Rev War predecessors. In short, I think it is at least possible that these were the start to the brass-hilt swords that were to come.
