For Sale

The following items are listed by for sale by users of the site and dealers. They are in no way endorsed or guaranteed by www.antiquearmsresearch.com

Add a Classified Item

Type:

Nation:

Keyword(s):

Budget: to

Clicking on the sword will take you through to the relevant classified item or dealer site.

Don't miss out! - Do you want to be kept informed weekly of new aditions? Just join our weekly update list.

You can also receive regular email notifcations when items match your keywords. To recieve them just register or logon at the top right of this page.

Nation : Spanish
Local Price : £3950

Late 17th Century Transitional Spanish Rapier / Smallsword With Bronze Hilt with Meso-American Symbols and SAHAGVM Blade. A late 17th century Spanish Transitional Rapier / Smallsword with a Cast and Chased Bronze Hilt featuring a rarely encountered blend of Spanish Baroque Classical and Meso-American Inca and Aztec symbols and motifs. The sword is mounted with a fine late 16th century Spanish rapier blade. The sword dates to the late 17th century. The hilt is of cast and chased bronze and is distinctive, possibly unique, due to its mix of styles and features incorporated into the hilt. The sword was most likely commissioned by a Spanish official with experience of Spain in its European context as well as its Central and South American dominions. The hilt is formed around a bold quillon block with a thick oval plug which encases the lower part of the tang nearest the ricasso. Between the plug and the ricasso two robust shell guards are joined at the tang aperture. The outer shell which protects the fingers of a right-handed user is slightly larger than the inner shell guard which protects the thumb. To the front the knuckle bow emanates from the block and curves upwards to be secured into the pommel front with an integral terminal hook. The solid slightly flattened rounded square shaped pommel has its broadest faces to the front and back with its narrowest to the sides. It has an integral button on top and flared neck beneath. A quillon projects to the rear with a solid swollen terminal. Two pas d' ane rings project from the block from underneath the knucklebow and quillon and curve downwards to terminate between the shell guards. The shell guards have thickened rims and are intricately pierced. The larger shell on both sides depicts a seated robed classical deity with a child in a panel in the middle, flanked by dancing figures wrapped in garlands on each side. This feature is obviously influenced by the Spanish Baroque architectural style. The second shell has a slightly differently poised deity and instead of dancing figures on the flanks the space is fashioned with the inward-looking profile heads of Meso-American Indians. Front and back the block and pommel feature a similar robed deity with a child inside panels. To the sides of the pommel Aztec heads in feather headdress stare back at the onlooker. The pas d' ane rings, knucklebow, shell guard rims and quillon are decorated with reeded lines. The knucklebow has a swelling in the middle shaped as a robed figure playing pipes and a swelling at the top shaped as a classical head from which the hook attachment to the pommel emerges. The swollen terminal of the canted quillon is shaped as an intimidating Inca warrior's head. The baluster shaped oval section grip is wrapped with pairs of contra-twisted brass ropes with wire spacers between. Ferrules are mounted top and bottom each decorated with similarly incised lateral lines. The stiff gently tapering blade is of flattened diamond section and of high quality. It has a short ricasso and a pronounced deep fuller on each side which extends from the hilt for 8 inches (20 cm) until it tapers to a point beyond which two small anchor-like marks are stamped into the medial ridge on each side. Clearly stamped into each fuller are the letters S A H A G V M flanked by crosses on each side. Despite the slight difference in spelling, “SAHAGVM”, is the mark of Alonso de Sahagún the Elder, an important Spanish swordsmith working in Toledo from circa 1570 to 1600. His mark, like the marks of other famous swordsmiths of the late 16th century, was copied by blademakers to follow as an emblem of quality. For example, it often appears on the blades of Dutch Walloon Swords of the mid-17th century. Whilst it is difficult to attribute this blade to the original Sahagún, it is of undoubted high quality. It is similar to a late 16th century blade mounted onto a rapier in the Wallace collection (collection ref: A669), and another in the Victoria and Albert Museum (collection ref: M.91-1921) stamped ALONZO . DE . SAHAGUN . EN . TOLEDO, both attributed to this maker. The blade is 35.75 inches (91 cm) long and overall the sword is 42.75 inches (108.5 cm).

Nation : Japanese
Local Price : £3950

Click and use the code >25370 to search for this item on the dealer website Superb, Gendaito, Japanese Traditionally Hand Made Officer´s Katana By A Famous Gendaito Sword Maker, & Signed Ichihara Ichiryushi Nagamitsu, With His Kakihan, and Silver Clan Kamon Of the Fujii

Nation : British
Local Price : £3950

Rare English “Mortuary” sword, dating to the middle part of the 17th century. A rare English “Mortuary” sword, dating to the middle to third quarter parts of the 17th century and the English Civil War, Commonwealth, Protectorate and Restoration periods. The sword is a rare hybrid type with hilt features common to both contemporary English Mortuary and Walloon swords. The hilt is of typical “Mortuary” form consisting of a broad saucer-shaped guard plate from which three main curved guard bars taper upwards ending with flattened angled terminals screwed into the pommel to secure the structure. The wide back edge of the plate is tightly scrolled downwards to create a wrist guard. The grip sits on top of a flanged plug inside the guard beneath which two short langets extend through the base to secure the blade at the ricasso on either side. Whilst of “Mortuary” type, the hilt differs from the usual form. The guard plate is chiselled on the outside with the outline of two clams, one on either side of the blade, which emulate the side guard plates of English contemporary “Walloon” swords. The insides of these areas are pierced with regular patterns of diamond, circle, and figure of eight shapes, similar to the piercings in the plates of Walloon swords. The oval panel to the front of the guard plate at the base of the knuckle bow is an extension of the plate which is also pierced in the “Walloon” manner. The guard bars are narrower but thicker than the usual flat bars of mortuary hilts. The two secondary guard bars which emit downwards from the knuckle bow either side terminate in pronounced curls which fall short of reaching the side guard bars to which they are usually fixed. Instead, the bars are joined together, and the bottom bar is joined to the plate below. The upper bar is extended to create a crescent which is fixed onto the side guard bar to secure the front and side structures. The middles of the side guard bars are swollen and bisected to create knops and whilst this feature is common, but not exclusive to English Walloon swords, it is not common on mortuary hilts. The curved rear secondary guard bars which extend downwards from the side bars to the plate near the wrist guard terminate in pronounced curls like the secondary bar terminals which emit from the front knuckle bow. The onion shaped pommel is smoothly multifaceted and has an integral button on top and a pronounced flared neck beneath with a collar. It sits on top of a baluster shaped grip with iron ferrules top and bottom bound with wire. The broad, plain, double-edged, tapering blade is imposing and of robust form. It has a short ricasso. The blade was probably made in one of the German blade making centres such as Solingen. Huge numbers of blades were imported into Britain during the Civil War period from Europe to fulfill demand for swords on both Royalist and Parliamentarian sides. Two swords described as mortuary swords, very similar in form to our sword, are illustrated in Cyril Mazansky’s “British Basket Hilted Swords”, Boydell Press 2005, on pages 245 and 246. One is in the Kienbusch Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Reference 1977-167-621, and the other sold through Christies London, lot 54, 7th May 1981. Other Mortuaries with similar secondary guard arrangements are featured on pages 250 and 263. Contemporary English swords of definite Walloon type which display similar features are illustrated in Mazansky on pages 282, 283 and 284, mounted with typical teardrop wrist guards etc. Provenance: John Hardy Collection. Measurements: 34.5 inch blade (87.5 cm), 40.75 inches overall length (103.5 cm). The blade is just over 1.75 inches wide at the hilt 4.75 cm

Nation : Russian
Local Price : £3950

Click and use the code >25444 to search for this item on the dealer website Rare, Absolutely Stunning 1st Empire, Combat, ´Blue. & Gilt´ Officer´s Sabre of the Legere, Hussards, & Mounted Chasseurs. The Year IX, Circa 1810, Sabre Used by Officers of the Mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard

Nation : British
Local Price : £3900

Scarce Royal Horse Guards Basket Hilted Back Sword circa 1750 to 1780. A fine example of a British Horseman’s Basket Hilted Back Sword made for an officer in The Royal Horse Guards as is evidenced by the subjects in surviving contemporary portraits of officers in that regiment. Whilst the hilt type is distinctive in terms of its stylistic features, a further aspect which is not conveyed by the photographs featured below, is its large size. The hilt type is one of a group of surviving swords with similar distinctive hilts which was once an Ordnance Pattern at the higher end of the quality range for British military swords. Its issue coincided with the outbreak of the Seven Years War in Europe (1756 to 1763). Simultaneously this conflict also spread to North America where it is referred to as the French and Indian War fought there between Britain and France. The sword type would have seen service in both theatres and most likely in the American Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The basket guard is particularly well constructed from thick robust iron bars. The form of hilt decoration is the same style as that developed earlier in the century by the leading Scottish sword makers working in Glasgow such as John Simpson (I) and Thomas Gemmill who were both Kings Armourers. These makers developed the “Glasgow” style of Scottish hilt consisting of bold, flattened, rectangular structural bars, decorated on the outside with long shallow central grooves flanked by narrower incised lines either side. The style of our sword is the same but it was probably made by Harvey in Birmingham having adopted the Glasgow style for this particular pattern of hilt. The fully formed basket retains its pleasing oval shape and is pierced with triangles and circles in the main front and side guard panels which are also finely fretted at the edges with symmetrical chevrons and merlons. One of the main frontal guard plates in traditional basket hilt design has been replaced with a “horseman’s” oval ring. An additional elaboration by Harvey to the hilt design was to apply an extra transverse bar underneath the main guard plate just above the frontal loop guard. The arms of the guard are forged onto a circle of iron into which the base of the bun shaped pommel sits. The pronounced button is integral with the pommel and not of separate manufacture. The pommel is decorated with three sets of lines, similar in form to those present on the main bars of the hilt, formed as crescents. The grip is of wood covered leather bound with brass wire with iron ferrules top and bottom. Unusually this sword retains its full length single edged blade of 39.25 inches (99.5 cm). It has a short ricasso and a deep fuller running underneath the blunt back edge on each side for 22.5 inches (57 cm) after which the blade is double edged. A shallower broader fuller commences an inch or so from the hilt, runs along the middle of the blade, and tapers in proportion with the overall taper of the blade to the tip. The sword is in good condition overall with some blackened patination and age related staining. The parts of the hilt are tight together. See Robert Brooker, “British Military Pistols and Associated Edged Weapons”, Colorcraft Ltd, 2016 page 96, Figure 67 for a very similar example. Also see Richard Bezdek, “Swords and Sword Makers of England and Scotland”, Paladin Press, 2003, page 285 for another similar sword.

Nation : British
Local Price : £3,895.00

English Civil War Mortuary Sword. Ref 9200. A Good English Civil War Mortuary Sword. 38 1/2&157; overall, 32&157; single edged blade, double edged towards the tip, cut with three fullers running the entire length of the blade, stamped within each of the fullers on both sides; ´FECIT SALINGEN´. Hilt comprising solid guard chiselled with a male bust on each side between foliage, short scrolled wrist guard, knuckle guard connected by two diagonal bars & two bifurcated side bars chiselled with foliage, the knuckle guard and side bars screwed to the globular pommel, the latter decorated with foliage & with flattened button. Grip bound with twisted brass wire between two Turk´s heads.&194;&160; Circa 1640 Very good example in fine condition &194;&160; Images courtesy of West Street Antiques (https://antiquearmsandarmour.com/)

Nation : British
Local Price : £3875

Fine Victorian Highland Scottish Dirk for an Officer of the Highland Light Infantry. An impressive Scottish Military Dirk made for an officer in the Highland Light Infantry in the late 19th century. The dirk was made and retailed by Leckie Graham & Co of Union Street in Glasgow. The blade retains much of its original polish which highlights the etched regimental badges, VR cipher and Scottish symbols. It is housed in its wooden leather covered scabbard with its bi-knife and fork. The dirk is in fine condition with its bronze Ormolu mounts retaining most of their original gilt cover. The grips are mounted with finely cut dark red multifaceted Citrine pommel stones. The dirk retains is steel black painted storage box and its brocade belt. The grips of the dirk, bi-knife and fork are fashioned from blackened hardwood carved with a pattern of basketweave with bronze studs mounted at the intersections of the weave. The raised ornate pommels are canted forwards each mounted with a finely cut Citrine inside decorative ferrules featuring bands of thistles and foliage around the base. The Citrines are of a uniform deep red colour. The dirk grip base mount is decorated in the same manner. The cone shaped grip bases of the bi-knife and fork are plain and mounted with sprung clips on either side to secure the grips to the scabbard pocket tops. The leaf shaped blade is 11 inches (28 cm) long and has a scalloped back edge under which a deep fuller extends towards the tip and terminates just after the scallop line ends, after which the blade becomes double edged to the tip. A wider fuller extends from the hilt along the middle of the blade to nearer the tip. The blade is profusely etched and engraved in the typical high quality manner of the late Victorian era and retains much of its original polished finish. On the side with the cutting edge facing left the name of the maker / outfitter “LECKIE GRAHAM & CO UNION ST GLASGOW” is featured in the ricasso at the base of the blade. Leckie Graham was an important outfitter in Glasgow established in 1849 and in the late 19th century was based at Union Street. The company supplied much of the dress accoutrements for the Highland Light Infantry not least because Glasgow and its surrounds were the core recruiting area for the regiment. Above the outfitter name is a bold foliate thistle. On top of this is the VR cipher with a resplendent crown on top with a further thistle above. The reverse side from the tip down features a resplendent crown with the bugle badge with “HLI” in the centre. Below this the badge of the regiment is featured centred with a thistle. Below this an elephant reflects the service of the regiment in India. Beneath the elephant a further bold thistle is featured. The dirk is housed in a wooden scabbard covered with black leather on top of which the scabbard mounts are applied. The mouthpiece to the front contains the regimental badge in silver on the Ormolu background. To the rear the belt carrying strap is still attached to the bar shaped suspension mount. The mounts for the bi-knife and fork pocket tops and the chape feature bold designs of intertwined thistles at the front. The dirk retains its gold silken brocade belt with red leather backing. The belt plate is formed in the same but expanded manner as the mouthpiece front – the regimental badge applied in silver on the Ormolu front centred with an Ormolu crown above, “HLI” in the middle with an elephant at the base with the “ASSAYE” riband on its back. The double-hinged black painted steel storage box has a carrying handle on top and a locket which does not function although the lid opens and closes effectively. The box retains its original kid leather padded liner fixed into the lid and into the base of the compartment. The Highland Light Infantry was one of the most famous regiments of the British Army. It was formed in 1881 as part of Childers Reforms to British infantry regiments by the renaming of the 71st (Highland) Light Infantry as the 1st Battalion and the 74th (Highland) Regiment of Foot as the 2nd Battalion. This dirk dates to the period between 1881 and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. During this 20 year period the 1st Battalion was posted to South Africa in 1899 when the Second Boer War broke out. The 2nd Battalion saw action at the Battle of Tel El Kebir in 1882 during the Anglo-Egyptian War and after a brief return the England the Battalion was posted to India until 1900. Condition: The condition of the dirk is very fine with minor wear as can in be seen in the photos. The pommel stones are in excellent original condition with no cracks, chips or interference to the mount housings. The top of the sprung retention clip for the fork has broken off but it is remains properly functional.

Nation : British
Local Price : £3.850

Early 18th Century Scottish Basket Hilted Sword of Glasgow Style. An early 18th century Scottish Basket Hilted sword. The hilt is of fine quality workmanship and is mounted with a broad Solingen made double fullered blade. The structural bars are of thick flattened rectangular section and are decorated on the outside in the distinctive “Glasgow” style with broad filed longitudinal grooves along the middle with narrower incised lines on each side. This style was developed by sword makers working in Glasgow in the second half of the 17th century and flourished until the third quarter of the 18th century. The style was also adopted by the most skilled smiths in some of the other sword making centres in Scotland and was copied by the British military for some of its own basket hilted swords made in the Scottish style in the mid-18th century. Filing and incising the bars in this manner was a time consuming and skilled task demanding many hours of work. This hilt is a fine quality example which stands out in other ways. The pierced patterns are finely and symmetrically executed. The primary guard panels at the front are pierced with an oblique quatrefoil at the centre, surrounded by flanged hearts at the sides and circles in the corners. The side guard panels and knuckle bow are pierced with flanged hearts top and bottom with two circles in the middle. Concentric cup and ring marks are applied between the quatrefoils and the circles which are repeated at the base of the side guard panels and side merlons. These marks are an early feature and help date the hilt to the early 18th century. The side guard panels and the knucklebow are applied with grooves and lines which radiate downwards and terminate in lateral grooves across the base of each. The main guard panels are filed in “Glasgow” style at the sides in the same manner as the guard bars. All of the primary and secondary guard plates are finely fretted at the edges with cusps and merlons. The forward loop guards are decorated in the “Glasgow” manner crossed with lateral grooves at the joins with the main side guard bars. The cone shaped pommel has three sets of Glasgow style grooves which radiate to the edge from the peened tang on top. The spaces between are cut with similar grooves in chevron shapes. The guard arm terminals tuck into a groove cut around the pommel just below its middle in the Scottish style. The grip is mounted on a thick leather liner and formed from a baluster shaped piece of hardwood with brass ferrules top and bottom. The slack in these ferrules indicate that the grip was once wrapped with a material, probably leather or shagreen, but is now missing. The tapering single edged blade is of fine quality. It has a short ricasso and a double fuller which runs from the hilt almost to the tip. Letters in the fullers on each side form the word SOLINGEN and refer to the famous German blade making centre where the blade was made. Like many period Scottish swords this one has seen a long working life and the blade has been adapted during its period of use. It was originally double edged and slightly broader than it is now. It has been intentionally slightly ground back along one side during its working life to create a back edge in proportion with the blade taper. The fullers are now not running along the middle as would be usual with a broad sword blade of this type, but instead, are nearer to the regressed back edge than the cutting edge because of the modification. During the early 18th century “back sword”, or single edged, blades became increasingly popular. They were less expensive to make than double edged blades and became fashionable for both clan, civilian and military markets in Scotland. The blade may have been slimmed to suit the new fashion by creating the back edge. The new back edge is decorated with a long row of small crescents intended to give more definition to the newly created spine of the blade. Alternatively, possibly the blade when double edged was damaged with nicks at its front edge through use, then refurbished at some time which involved smoothing the nicks out of the front of the blade to create the back edge, then reversing the blade in the hilt. This kind of adaptation seems to be more likely to have been carried out by a clan armourer rather than a sword maker working in the burghs. Swords with amended blades of this type, with similar profiles, are not unusual judging by the number that have survived. The sword is in russet condition with some pitting to the hilt in places. The blade is 32.25 inches long (82 cm) and the overall length of the sword is 37.25 inches (just over 94.5 cm). For swords with similar hilts see Cyril Mazansky, “British Basket-Hilted Swords”, Boydell Press, 2005, particularly those illustrated in pages 103, 107, 111 and 116 – 124.