Spanish Cavalry or British Engineer?

[midelburgo]

Originally Posted by Will M

My gut feeling is this is a Spanish officer who joined the British army. The sword is piquet weight for dress. Scinde cavalry officers preferred this steel hilt for more hand protection and its obvious desirable appearance. The officer would have to be in the UK to have such a hilt mated to his Spanish blade.

Piquet weight swords were not used in the Spanish army. They had a sort of smallswords just for gala dressing (one below for cavalry 1887). There existed a large variety in the same blade model, in respects of length, breadth and weight, specially before 1870. Sometimes you find troopers blades in officers hilts, so probably they had different swords depending on the expected functions. And yes, the 1850 blade in the first post is in the lighter side, so likely not a combat weapon, so protection does not seem the aim here.