Thanks a million! Its the copacetic guys and gals like you that fuel the gilded and scrolled war machine we run here! I would however like to point out a few blogs that we might have not survived without. 

peashooter85 for formerly maintaining the place and being quite generally one of the most erudite and affable men I’ve known when he’s not sending photos of phallic looking tubers and Elizabethan catcalls to complete strangers

ghost-of-gold and his neato #antiques tag from which we culled much fine material

art-of-swords for their blisteringly large collection of posts upon ornate and splendid blades

And finally the innumerable other contributors of the gilded and tacky implements of war here on tumblr, to which there is not enough space in appropriate medium to name right now. To them and to you all, we tip our hats. 

art-of-swords:

Venetian Processional Glaive 

• Dated: late 17th century, early 18th century
• Measurements: head ~ 90cm; overall length ~ 223cm
• A comparable example is in the former armoury of The Council of Ten in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Italy

The glaive come with a long flat knife-like head double-edged over the upper third of its length, formed with a pair of scalloped nodules at the base. It is pierced with two rosettes within the lower half, the back edge formed with a matching nodular projection towards the point and a pair of projecting crescentic stylised monsters from a pierced rosette.

It has faceted socket on a moulded short neck and extending to form short straps, and the head is decorated with pricked and coarsely engraved baroque designs on both sides, principally over the lower half, including garlands of fruit and trophies of armour all’antica, enclosed with oval cartouches.

Source: © Hermann Historica

art-of-swords:

Matching Ottoman Kiliç (Kilij) Saber and Khanjar Dagger 

• Dated: mid-19th century
• Measurements: overall length of the sword 93.2 cm, blade 67.3 cm. Overall length of the dagger 36.4 cm, blade 20.5 cm

Made out of gilt copper, the hilt comes with the characteristic lobed pommel, while the guard with downturned quillons. The scabbard is slotted to allow the broad blade to enter, and is covered entirely with corals and turquoises. The blade with a distinctive T-back spine develops to a long yelman or backedge. 

There is gold inlaid arches at either side of the forte, with a circular cartouche inlaid in gold on the right with ‘ALLAH,’ and an Arabic inscription running the length of the spine to the beginning of the yelman. On the left can be seen a Suleiman’s seal inlaid in gold containing a short inscription, with a short running vine inlaid in gold at the spine as well.

The gilded copper scabbard mounted en suite with the hilt is covered entirely with turquoises and corals, the reverse finely embossed and chased with flowering vines overall. The blade of the dagger is lightly-curved and double edged, with gold inlay to the forte at either side and traces of a wootz damascus steel pattern. 

Source & Copyright: Auctions Imperial

art-of-swords:

Indian Tegha Sword

• Dated: second half of the 19th century
• Measurements: overall length 70 cm, blade 59.3 cm

An Indian Tegha sword of massive proportions featuring an iron hilt with disk pommel and waisted grip. The exceptionally broad blade comes with a pronounced T-back and chiseled overall with Hindu gods, animals and vegetation sprays. The spine features chiseled Devanagari inscription.

Source & Copyright: Auctions Imperial

art-of-swords:

Sword and scabbard

• Dated: 1857
• Artist/Maker: Muneaki
• Place of origin: Ichinoseki, Japan 
• Materials and Techniques:[sword] forged steel; [scabbard] carved ivory
• Measurements: length ~ 105.5 cm overall
• Marks and inscriptions: “Ichinoseki Shin Kyu Kubota Minamoto Muneaki”-  Kubota Minamoto Muneaki, longstanding retainer of Ichinoseki (Mutsu province, modern-day Iwate Prefecture); “Ansei yon nen hachi gatsu hi” - A day in the eighth month of the fourth year of Ansei (1857)

The ivory scabbard of the sword is of extremely good quality in comparison to many later swords and daggers that are terribly poor by comparison and are mounted in ivory scabbards that are even worse. The scabbard obviously dates from about 1860 and the sword blade is signed “Kubota Minamoto Muneaki”, a well-documented 19th-century swordsmith, and is even dated 1857.

• Sidenote: In the early days following the “reopening” of Japan to the West from around 1860 and the abolition of the samurai class in 1876 understanding of Japanese swords in the West was virtually non-existent. Much of the information on the subject offered by the Japanese themselves was blindly accepted and many outright fakes were thought to be of great antiquity.

Source: Copyright: © V&A Images. All Rights Reserved

art-of-swords:

Rare Schiavona Dagger

• Dated: 18th century
• Measurements: overall length 56 cm

This is a seldom-encountered example, carried by Slavs in the service of the Venetian Doges. Mounted entirely in silver, with gilded pommel and guard with long, downturned quillons and filigreed crown-shaped guard set with pearls and garnets, struck with a Venetian hallmark depicting the Lion of St. Mark’s.

The wooden grip with complex twisted silver wire wrap and turksheads intact, the long, narrow tricorn blade finely profiled at the forte and deeply slotted and pierced, with acute thrusting tip. In its silver scabbard engraved overall in baroque flowers and stands of arms and gilt finial, with initials and a date on the reverse which appear to read “NF” in reverse and “1702”.

Source: Auctions Imperial © 2012 Arms & Armor

art-of-swords:

Exhibition or Presentation Russian Kastane

• Dated: 1850
• Provenance: Comte de Nesselrode, Château de Tzarevtchina (Governement de Saratov, Russia)
• Goldsmith: Ignatii Pavlovitch Sazikov
• More on the Kastane Sword

Mounted in heavily cast and chased silver-gilt, the hilt in traditional Sinhalese style elaborately decorated with guilloche, fluting and panels of engraved foliage and florets, with the pommel and quillon formed as the stylised heads of lions and the ogee-shaped knucklebow emerging at the quillon from the mouth of a beast and terminating at the pommel in the stylised head of a dragon.

The eyes of all the beasts on the hilt formed of cabochon-cut garnets or rubies – that on the nearside of the pommel replaced; below the quillon block the hilt widens to form a stepped collar into which are struck the maker’s mark of the St Petersburg court goldsmith Ignatii Pavlovitch Sazikov, the standard mark for 84 zolotniki and the assay master’s mark for Dmitri Tverskoy with the date 1850.

The wide blade of reduced Ottoman kiliç form in Damascus steel of Kirk Narduban pattern, with residual openwork panels of gilding either side of its back edge and a raised forte terminating in chiselled mihrab-style points. The scabbard of heavily cast and chased silver-gilt, decorated overall with foliage and guilloche.

The near- and off-sides set with blue and green cabochon-cut turquoises, the chape formed as a stylised dragon’s head, the back edge decorated with a pattern of overlapping scales and fitted with two loose rings in multifaceted mounts and the upper part formed of two bands of elongated hexagons.

Source & Copyright: Peter Finer

art-of-swords:

Ottoman Kilic Saber

• Dated: the blade, first half of the 18th century, mounts mid-19th century. Leather a period replacement
• Measurements: overall length 99 cm, blade 81.1 cm

A rare type, the grips of classic form with applied silver filigreed talisman, steel mounts extensively inlaid in silver in Ottoman motifs. The unusually long Persian heirloom blade forged of superb black wootz damascus steel comes with heavily gold-inlaid panels to each side of the forte containing Quranic inscriptions.

The sword has a deep fuller to either side terminating just beyond the raised yelman or backedge. Leather-covered wooden scabbard mounted in steel with extensive silver inlays en suite with the hilt, with its later baldric of worsted cords terminating in large tassels.

Source & Copyright: Auctions Imperial

art-of-swords:

Swords from the Romanian National Treasure

1. Sword in the left - offered by the Romanian Army to King Charles I, the Comander in Chieft during the independence war (1877-1978).
2. Sword in the right - sword and girdle given to Charles I by Sultan Abdul Aziz on the occasion of his recognition as Prince of the United Romanian Principalities.

Source & Copyright: © Art of Swords 2012

art-of-swords:

Robert Green Ingersoll’s Masonic Sword

• Robert Green “Bob” Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed “The Great Agnostic.”

The sword was issued when he still lived in Peoria, Illinois. Judging by the conspicuous cross, the resolutely theistic Masons must have awarded “Colonel Bob” his sword before he won fame as the “Great Agnostic.”

Photo source: Secular Humanism