Victorian sword stick esoterica

[Jim McDougall]

While the object of the thread is of course the sword cane, it is interesting to see the other features which also came into the 'concealed' category with these fashionable items.

In going through notes I discovered this......guns ALWAYS have to get in the act it seems This is an example of 'firearms curiosa' (Lewis Winant, 1955) that is featured in this Man at Arms article.
It is a cane with concealed gun apparently patented in Stockholm in 1885, and in US in 1895, but seems to have ceased production shortly later.
There are examples of these even produced with shoulder stocks!

In other reading, some of these sticks concealed other misc. and Toulouse Lautrec, the famed poster painter of Moulin Rouge fame, apparently had a decanter of his absinthe in his. Other sticks had various gadgets etc. to the notion of Swiss army knives.

The concept of firearms combined in swords and edged weapons was a long established idea, with various hunting swords having guns attached in the 18th c.