Late 18th Century Spadroon For Comment

[Hotspur]

Nice sword.

I think the ring does not so much mean naval but popular and a trend of the age. As we shall see in one example I attach, it is tough to say a ring must mean naval. I am not sure when we began with that as an absolute but I keep it in mind now.

The half basket look seems to start with infantry hangers and cutlasses back to the mid 18th century. The urn shape pommels last for some decades in various forms, with the 1770s/1780s about the beginning when found on these spadroon blades.

In general, I would put these in the 1780s as the best ballpark, based on traits and some of the blade decorations. The example you show is perhaps the finest furbishing work I have seen and archived and would think woods vs horn due to the crispness of the reeding. The horn grips reeded by steaming and pressing in a mold.

So, this array of attachments may be in a couple of posts to break up my thoughts. I have two sets of photos for this example that clearly shows an officer in what appears to be dragoon of a colonial trim.

I'll have to resize a bunch of these it seems but here is a start

Cheers
GC