Earliest Use of Paired Crescent Moons on Solingen Blades

Jim McDougall · 27th April 2015, 04:25 AM

Peserey, thank you so much for joining us here, and for sharing this wonderful old shashka of your family.

This appears to be a Caucasian shashka of most likely 1890s into early 1900s which is mounted with a Solingen trade blade. It is hard to say for certain as this 'cosmological' arrangement with moon and stars seems copied from some of the motif associated with the Schimmelbusch family. Their markings did not typically have the moon, but various astral symbols with stars in three's. The shape on these correspond to much older Solingen symbols often termed 'cogwheels' but are usually seen as stars.

While Caucasian makers often produced their own blades, typically in Chechnya and copying European marks, the ones on your blade suggest it s a German blade rather than Caucasian.

27th April 2015, 04:25 AM	#26
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 9,767	Peserey, thank you so much for joining us here, and for sharing this wonderful old shashka of your family. This appears to be a Caucasian shashka of most likely 1890s into early 1900s which is mounted with a Solingen trade blade. It is hard to say for certain as this 'cosmological' arrangement with moon and stars seems copied from some of the motif associated with the Schimmelbusch family. Their markings did not typically have the moon, but various astral symbols with stars in three's. The shape on these correspond to much older Solingen symbols often termed 'cogwheels' but are usually seen as stars. While Caucasian makers often produced their own blades, typically in Chechnya and copying European marks, the ones on your blade suggest it s a German blade rather than Caucasian.