hi,
on the chevron blades, i would have to disagree with what has been said (also that stated by rawson/pant/fiegel). all the examples i have seen have been made from seperate billets of steel and pattern-welded steel, skillfully joined together. these all seem (in my humble opinion) to be 19thC, and not any earlier. both fiegel and pant took their dating from rawson, who placed a 17thC date based on the excample in the V&A. there are no accession records, nor further info on this particular sword, so the dating was based on his own opinion. i dont think that particular blade can date any earlier than 19th, and it clearly shows evidence of being constructed from these seperate pieces, as do all the others i've seen. i cant speak for pants example, but fiegels definately was. hopefully jens will tell us how his piece is made.
attached is a sword i once owned, which shows the join.
i am sure that if any of these swords were used as a sword should, they would shatter into pieces (an expensive experiment). they were a bladesmith showing off and made for decorative use only.
of course, tim could be right in his theory, but i have never seen evidence of it so far. the only time i saw something close, was from a disreputable english dealer who attempted to mask off chevrons onto a pattern-welded blade, in an attempt to decieve. luckily, the job done was as bad as his reputation :-)
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