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Originally Posted by Rick
I expect that blade is substantially older than the Dealer's estimate.
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I agree. Blades marked ME FECIT SOLINGEN were widely produced, often with misspelled Latin inscriptions of a pious or patriotic nature, for export across Europe and even to the East in the 17th to beginning 18th centuries. You find them far and wide in all sorts of blade shapes -- sabers, backswords, riding-swords -- mounted up as Caucasus
shashkas, Indian
firangis, and so forth. A few were even mounted up by artisans in the Forbidden City of Peking and presented to the emperors of China.
a fascinating example of this:
An article in
Vaabenhistoriske Aarboger Vol XVI about a Japanese sword with a European blade makes reference to a dated ME FECIT SOLINGEN 1633 (or 1635, inscription worn) but possibly of Dutch manufacture from the spelling of its other inscription, P....SSS KEJSER, ANNO..... An interesting thing, it is a recycled sword blade remounted as an
aikuchi knife in Japan, the blade shortened, tang replaced with one of Japanese shape, and tempered and polished in Japanese manner with remains of the inscriptions visible as above, in a lacquered scabbard bearing the
mon of the Matsuda family . (Present location unknown, was exhibited by the UK's Tôken Kai at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1968, cat. no. 95).