Transitional, Victorian, Other?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Dearest Jim, i will act as if you didn't drop my knowledge to even lower than what it really is. Definitely this is not your 'symbolic' style, nor are we too old to have start losing our discernment .
I will not digest possibilities based on esoterica, but do not avoid flying on plausible imagination.
What i figure to have a sense in Toledan smith marks within the discussed context, are those relative to the Toledo (guild) name, namely the upper bar for T for TOLEDO upon the 'said to be' letter A and the appendix L for TOLEDO on the lower right side.



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I have no idea what this means, but to get to the point I was making, which was that Udo drew a relatively free association comparison of some of the Toledo makers marks ( in Palomares) with the crude device on the OP blade here. In that perspective, there is a marked similarity between the two.

It seems that these crowned devices on either sides of the blade are meant to allude to either earlier makers marks or heraldic devices or both, but as they are added to a sword which does not as yet have supported context, it is hard to determine what they represent .

Since the comparison was made to suggest similarity to Toledo type markings, whether the Toledo mark noted was a letter or interpretation of another device, symbol or image is not necessarily important . It was meant only as an illustration to show similarity. It is however interesting in the notation that Toledo smiths used letters apparently in symbolism outside their normal alphabetic scope. Therefore, though some makers used letters matching their name, many did not so the letters had other meaning......I believe this is what we are both saying.

I agree, the esoterica involved in discussing those circumstances are far out of the scope of this discussion.

As Glen has well pointed out, these crudely applied markings on the OP blade appear to have been added to add character to the sword, and would appear to be artistic interpretations of classical heraldic or possibly makers symbols, or both.
As we cannot know what the artist was intending in these apparently contrived markings, we cannot say what they in fact represent, and suggestions are speculative. Still it is interesting to try to estimate what may be at hand, and discussion is good.