The EARLY MAKERS TRADE MARKS thread... lost and partly restored.

[gp]

Originally Posted by Victrix

No tarot card association, but when visiting the Heeresgeschichtliches (Army) Museum in Vienna last Christmas I spotted the swordarm in the clouds symbol on a battle flag (the one on the right) in a painting showing the siege of Vienna by the Ottomans in 1683. It’s clearly wielded by Hungarian hussars wearing furs of predator animals and armed with curved sabres. A sign stated that the symbol was popular with the hussars at the time. Much later this symbol was apparently also the coat of arms for Bosnia Hercegovina after Austria-Hungary invaded and occupied this Ottoman territory in 1878. I don’t know what the symbol means but would guess it represents the sword of God from heaven?

it is not as strange as it seems;

the first time the "sword"appears" is when a vasal state ( Kingdom of Bosnia) 1493 of Vladislaus II of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia appeared;

Coat of Arms with the curved Sword and arm in the yellow coloured shirt

Just to appear later during the Habsburgian occupation in the K.u.K. Inf. Regiment I and IV.
See the belt buckle, Coat of Arms in the officer's sword handle and cap signs

Also taken over by the Yugoslav Kingdom when they used the "sword"( handschar as it was called in the former Yu) as countermark on their 1931 golden ducat.

Back to the painting: it was not that rare to have the curved sword on the banner as many horsemen and footsoldiers came from that region.

[toaster5sqn]

Hullo all, I've just joined this forum. Although my own collection is extremely limited (1) as New Zealand is not a great place to find antique swords I am an active member of the local HEMA club. As part of the club I have been organizing trips to the Auckland War Memorial Museum to view their collection, sadly hidden in the basement since they reorganized the displays for the WWI centennial.

So far we have correctly identified a number of mislabeled swords and provided additional details about even those that were correctly labeled, as a result they are keen to have us back and are getting much more relaxed about letting us actually handle the swords.

So for your own pleasure and any information you can provide let me show you some of the markings we have discovered.
A 17th C Spanish style rapier 106cm blade, weighing 1188g with a balance point at 5cm. The fuller contains a series of what appear to be astrological signs terminated with some form of anchor mark.

[fernando]

Welcome to the forum, toaster .
Nice rapier with a pierced hilt. The 'anchor' symbol is, as you know, 'often' seen in both Spanish (Toledo) and also in German (Solingen) blades. If you browse the term on the Shearch button above you will find various approaches on this subject.
The letters on the left are not doubt those of the blade smith (PERO ?); most probably different letters appear on the other side.
It would be useful to see photos of both sides in all their graphic extent, to try and identify their contents.
When you post such pictures, we will see what knowledged members have to say about the marks on this sword.


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[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by toaster5sqn

Hullo all, I've just joined this forum. Although my own collection is extremely limited (1) as New Zealand is not a great place to find antique swords I am an active member of the local HEMA club. As part of the club I have been organizing trips to the Auckland War Memorial Museum to view their collection, sadly hidden in the basement since they reorganized the displays for the WWI centennial.

So far we have correctly identified a number of mislabeled swords and provided additional details about even those that were correctly labeled, as a result they are keen to have us back and are getting much more relaxed about letting us actually handle the swords.

So for your own pleasure and any information you can provide let me show you some of the markings we have discovered.
A 17th C Spanish style rapier 106cm blade, weighing 1188g with a balance point at 5cm. The fuller contains a series of what appear to be astrological signs terminated with some form of anchor mark.

Glad to have you here, and well done on the work of your group identifying weapons and seeing that they are properly labeled. It is most important to those of us who have spent many years studying arms and armor to do that very thing, and we've been doing it here for well over 20 years.

As you have noted, what appears to be a makers(?) name appears in the fuller and it was often a Spanish convention to interpolate astrological and or occult symbols with inscriptions to imbue magic potential in effect to the blade. The 'anchor' was also a device which was used at the fuller terminus or to end an inscription on a blade in a punctuation sense.
These are always interesting as there are nuanced variations in the elements of these cross style devices mostly in the numbers of branches/bars .

As Fernando has noted, Germany was most avid in using copies of these as well on blades they made often with spurious markings and inscriptions from Spanish and Italian makers.

Often on blades there were unusual groupings of letters which may have been acronyms for phrases or invocations, while names copied in Germany may often be misspelled or improperly used.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

...Often on blades there were unusual groupings of letters which may have been acronyms for phrases or invocations, while names copied in Germany may often be misspelled or improperly used...

Jim, this is the reason why i have suggested that, more adequate assessments may take place when photos of each side of the blade with the complete inscriptions are shown.
Probably you didn't read my post .

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Jim, this is the reason why i have suggested that, more adequate assessments may take place when photos of each side of the blade with the complete inscriptions are shown.
Probably you didn't read my post .

Actually Fernando I have learned to read your posts very carefully so as not to infringe on your assessments. My attention was to the nature of the inscriptions and acronyms or names in them, which was what was being queried.

I saw no need to say more regarding matters involving which side of the blade they were on or if they were connected etc. as you had already (as you have emphasized) mentioned it.
My response had nothing to do with photography and preferred postures or images, and described the content of inscriptions in a general sense.

I did not say more on thoughts on the sword itself as this thread is on markings, not sword identification, and I almost suggested a separate thread, but that is your department.

[fernando]

Jim, should i would humbly reiterate that you didn't read my post or, for the matter, what i meant to say. The inscription in the one side of the blade as posted is not fully shown (so it seems), reducing in such case the possibility to interpreter its actual contents, whether a name or other. A picture of the other side would let us conclude how its inscription would be associated to that in the side posted, like the completion of a name (first and last), the allusion to the city of provenance (Toledo or Solingen), some religious theme .. or even a blank.
Therefore i was expecting that further thoughts on this issue were much better placed (only) after the thread author contemplate us with the requested pictures. Unless of course you or some other member were able to decipher the whole thing with the partial image available.
Obviously and so far the subject at stake is the marks in the blade, and not the sword itself.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Jim, should i would humbly reiterate that you didn't read my post or, for the matter, what i meant to say. The inscription in the one side of the blade as posted is not fully shown (so it seems), reducing in such case the possibility to interpreter its actual contents, whether a name or other. A picture of the other side would let us conclude how its inscription would be associated to that in the side posted, like the completion of a name (first and last), the allusion to the city of provenance (Toledo or Solingen), some religious theme .. or even a blank.
Therefore i was expecting that further thoughts on this issue were much better placed (only) after the thread author contemplate us with the requested pictures. Unless of course you or some other member were able to decipher the whole thing with the partial image available.
Obviously and so far the subject at stake is the marks in the blade, and not the sword itself.

I do appreciate your humble assertion that I am not capable of reading your post , but I would point out again that I was addressing the typical CONTENT of the inscriptions often found on blades (in general).............I was NOT trying to decipher this one.

Obviously the inscriptions on blades often differ from obverse to reverse, and this can definitely impact the entirety of the inscription if you are trying to decipher it. Thus, your request for a full complement of images of BOTH sides of the blade (which I understood) was perfectly understandable.

My point was that 'inscriptions; (in general) comprise names, phrases, invocations or acronyms, and within these are often 'magic' symbols interpolated within them....as seen here. This was a statement I could easily make WITHOUT seeing both sides of the blade as it pertained to blade inscriptions in general.

[toaster5sqn]

Thank you all for your kind remarks and the additional information.
Here as requested are additional photos of the inscriptions on the right and left of the blade, we're still trying to improve the quality of the photos we get from these visits.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by toaster5sqn

... we're still trying to improve the quality of the photos we get from these visits...

That would be an excelent idea . Also placing the photos all in the same direction will help discern what the inscriptions are all about, specially with such 'encripted' cases. I will now open a new thread in the regular discussion forum, so that a further audience may have a say at this.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=27163

I am still convinced that the inscription is about a smith's name and a city; something like "Pedro de Toro in Toledo" comes to mind but, this is just a guess. One thing you should check on is the presence of a smith's mark in the ricasso, close to the tang, behind the hilt. Toledan masters often strike their personal mark in that area.


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[serdar]

Originally Posted by gp

it is not as strange as it seems;

the first time the "sword"appears" is when a vasal state ( Kingdom of Bosnia) 1493 of Vladislaus II of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia appeared;

Coat of Arms with the curved Sword and arm in the yellow coloured shirt

Just to appear later during the Habsburgian occupation in the K.u.K. Inf. Regiment I and IV.
See the belt buckle, Coat of Arms in the officer's sword handle and cap signs

Also taken over by the Yugoslav Kingdom when they used the "sword"( handschar as it was called in the former Yu) as countermark on their 1931 golden ducat.

Back to the painting: it was not that rare to have the curved sword on the banner as many horsemen and footsoldiers came from that region.

Actualy on 1 yugoslavian dukat that is not hand with sword neither is that sword, that is actuali two birds on the sides and tre holder in the midle, that is one mark, other is corn.
Sword mark is only used in austrian dukat sword surounded with stars.
Cheers.

[werecow]

The so far unidentified mark below was seen on a most likely early 18th c Dutch shell guard sword as shown in this video where the criminally undersubscribed current owner takes it apart. He gives a more detailed description of the sword here. The blade also has VOC marks, Z (for Zeeland) and M (for Middelburg), and "1717" (presumably a date). Possibly also a D on the shoulder of the blade. The pommel side is on the bottom of the image.

I looked through Kinman's "European makers of edged weapons, their marks" and Lenkiewicz' "1000 Marks of European Blademakers" and this thread, but I did not find any exact matches.

Does it ring any bells?