The "Bushy Tailed Fox" story

[Norman McCormick]

Hi,
This thread may be of interest. http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread...highlight=1742 I still have the sword so if you want any more images please let me know. The BTF is on both sides of the blade.
Regards,
Norman.

[Jim McDougall]

OMG Norman!!!!
Thats exactly what I was talking about....back then we had no clue about the BTF! While Cloke was doing research on the running wolf he was keeping 'cards close to his vest', so no idea if what he was pursuing paralleled my study.
Wonderful example! Thank you!

It would seem Oley (of Shotley Bridge) was supplying blades to Birmingham and likely Harvey simply added his initials to the BTF. For some time there was some consternation about the examples of BTF found WITHOUT the SH initials....so the deduction was that perhaps Dawes was applying the mark as such (but without initials). Various blades are known with simply SH initial or sometimes his name with first initial. To add to the confusion his son also was involved. The use of the BTF seems to have waned in a few years altogether, but we know that Oley was still supplying blades into the 1790s as he was named as a participant in the blade trials of the so called sword scandals.

[urbanspaceman]

The first sword I ever bought – in 2017 - was this 1740s/50s cavalry hangar with the distinctive BTF. I bought it because I had seen a similar sword sold at auction a few years previously and attributed to the Oley family of SB.
Then I found a 1960s newspaper photo of an Oley descendant and village resident holding what he claimed was the last sword ever forged in the village. It is perfectly clear it is a mid.1700s hangar with a typical brass hilt.
I was suspicious, because I wondered how and/or where it had been hilted then remained in the village. At that time I was not aware of the Wilson family of SB who had been sword slippers even before the arrival of the Solingen diaspora, hilting blades made by Bertram at Allensford (upstream from SB) as early as 1670.
Anyway, it was obviously not the last sword made in the village but probably a rare remaining article perhaps passed down through the generations. It was, however, as I subsequently discovered, the same sword sold in auction and was indeed a product of the Oley family. It featured the BTF alone.
For some time I asked around locally if the BTF was a product of the Oleys and the answer was always yes. I asked nationally – and globally – if this was true and everyone said it was the mark of the Harveys. My follow-up question was always "Why are there no initials?" but this was never answered so I began my quest to establish that it was an Oley mark. When the smallsword (previously displayed) appeared in an auction archive with details of the village name script and – on enlarging it – also a BTF, I knew I had established my theory.