An Extremely Rare North Italian Arquebusier's Auxiliary Armament Saber, ca. 1510-15

[Matchlock]

Hi Cornelis,

Thank you so much for both your contribution and appreciation!

I can, of course, see your point of dating the piece into to 1530's and will try and find some illustrations to exemplify why I thought it might be a bit earlier.

Best wishes,
Michael

[broadaxe]

Absolutely stunning, a true conversation piece!
From a general point of view, it shows great resemblence to the famous Swiss hand and a half saber.
I would call it a hybreed between a messer and a Sinclair saber.
The entire construction, sans the gard, is pure central European messer. This kind of construction prevents the replacing of the guard alone, hence I think is the brazing at the pommel.

[Matchlock]

Excellent point, broadaxe, thank you so much!

Best,
Michael

[broadaxe]

Originally Posted by Matchlock

Excellent point, broadaxe, thank you so much!

Best,
Michael

Thank you, it seems your chest of wanders never runs out of surprizes!

Another thing, the thumb ring was very popular during the 17th century, though is known to be ealier. The guard composition looks of the 16th century fashion. You may have one of the earliest thumb ring weapons in existance.

[Matchlock]

Hi broadaxe,

I think your remark on the thumb guard is just on the point!

Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

Please see:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10867

[Samik]

Nice piece Michael

As has broadaxe cleverly pointed out the hilt and more elaborate guard shows more central european origin than oriental / central asian.
Thus I would kindly disagree (if I may ) on terming the weapon a "sabre". It is true that such pieces are sometimes hard to label by precise definition and often fall into several categories , yet I would like to bring up one point.

The most prominent feature of a "sabre-proper" (for lack of a better term) seems to be its canted hilt (at the very end , usually accompanied by a small pommel) and , not so much the curved blade (overall it gives you a kind of a "S" profile ; mind you there are various breeds of single edged and curved bladed swords , messers and falchions that arent really a product of central asian influences).

For comparison look at the hilt on the original weapon posted by Michael/Matchlock and compare it with these:

sword of sultan mehmed :



Note the canted hilt at the end.. also the curvature on the blade isnt so much dramatic , but the overall "S" profile can be visible

To give some other examples of typical sabre hilts here is a
Classical Hungarian 17th century sabre (again the way how the hilt ends is interesting):



15th century "Schiavonesca" saber :



Note that despite having a sword-like hilt it is indeed canted at the end and again forms a sort of a overall S-profile.


A closeup on the messer that belonged to Kaiser Maximmilian I :



One can spot the "knife like" ending , with the grip being straight, which is different to that of central asian influenced sabres. Going further some messers actually have quite a curve on their blade (albeit without the yelmen , another "saberish" feature which is missing on Michaels piece). Of course there are examples that are a bit of "wild cards" and have both sabre as well as "genuine european messer" features ,but they seem to be quite rare.

For those aforementioned reasons I would somewhat hestiate calling it a sabre. Not here to spark any heated debate , but I am geninuely interested whats your take on the issue.

Regards,
Samuel