Magnate (nobleman) saber from Croatia

[serdar]

Magnatska sablja ili plemićka sablja, or magnate (nobleman) saber, from Croatia with provenance of use by croatian nobleman, as usualy with those sabers or swords, blade is trophy and much older than mounting, in this case i would say a military karabela? Blade, maybe italian, but not sure.
I have a yatagan with blade that is cut down from old sword and it has a similar markings.
Blade is very good quality, (pictures are very bad quality, but they are what they are ��) it has three grooves, sharp yalman, and damage marks from another blade, axe, or a mace?.
I would say that blade is 17 century.

Mounting is silver with nice patina, nice preserved velvet, one side is ornamented with beautiful baroque engrawings and set with semi precious stones, other side is made like snake scales pattern, on the chape there is a snake holding a globe in its mouth.
Tang is peened into the hilt, with some resin or filler inside.
I would put mountings on the second half of 18 or end of 18 century, maybe begining of 19 century.

Any thoughts are welcome.

[serdar]

Photos

[serdar]

Photos

[serdar]

P

[Victrix]

Wow, that’s a beautiful sword Serdar! Great blade and amazing effect with the stones like drops of blood or glinting snake eyes. The scaling effect on the back of the scabbard and the little snake at the chafe are interesting details. It looks more authentic and older than the magnate sabres I’ve seen from 19thC although surprising the velvet is so well preserved. In the Napoleonic era animal designs were popular in so called Empire style (e.g. chairs and tables with feet shaped like lion paws, griffin carvings), but this sword seems older than that and the snake theme has some other meaning than just a fashionable style.

[serdar]

Originally Posted by Victrix

Wow, that’s a beautiful sword Serdar! Great blade and amazing effect with the stones like drops of blood or glinting snake eyes. The scaling effect on the back of the scabbard and the little snake at the chafe are interesting details. It looks more authentic and older than the magnate sabres I’ve seen from 19thC although surprising the velvet is so well preserved. In the Napoleonic era animal designs were popular in so called Empire style (e.g. chairs and tables with feet shaped like lion paws, griffin carvings), but this sword seems older than that and the snake theme has some other meaning than just a fashionable style.

Hy Victrix, thank you!
It sure is a very nice sword, i purchased it with thoughts of selling it, but i cant, it is magnificent in person.

I have another “magnate saber”, i will post it when i go to my house, it is allso very nice with old blade.

Velvet is indeed very well preserved, but it has been repaired, it doesent show on photos, mostly from upper side.

About snake, hmm i dont realy know, i had a shamshir in silver, whole scabbard was decorated like dragon scales, but blade was in a bad condition so i sold it.

Bigest mistery to me is a damage on the blade, to me it looks like some one fired a laser (yea i know it is imposible ) ) or a bullet and it scraped the blade, it needs to be seen in person to understand why i think that way.

It wasnt broken and then repaired, or something like that, but literary it looks like someone fired a projectile or (beam ) ) and scraped a blade. )

It is a mistery.

[gp]

Zdravo Serdar / Hello Serdar,

a very interesting sword indeed. Can you perhaps show better pictures of the decoration or inscriptions on the blade ?
The circular connected ones remind me of Ottoman cold weapons but the letters do look cyrillic ( which I tried to decipher...). Maybe I am mistaken on the latter but that is the reason why I would like to see better or closer ones....

[serdar]

Originally Posted by gp

Zdravo Serdar / Hello Serdar,

a very interesting sword indeed. Can you perhaps show better pictures of the decoration or inscriptions on the blade ?
The circular connected ones remind me of Ottoman cold weapons but the letters do look cyrillic ( which I tried to decipher...). Maybe I am mistaken on the latter but that is the reason why I would like to see better or closer ones....

Pozdrav Gp!
I will take a closer photo, but it says ANAN and twisted (reversed) NANA, i dont know what it means, i saw similar twisted (reversed) writings between sickle marks, circles, stars etc. On italian blades 16/17 century.

Anything else i realy dont know.

I will post you a closer pictures, allso from other saber, but im very sure it is not cirilic.

It is very interesting that you mentioned citilic text, it is very rare on blades, i mean original production text on cirilic, not later aded on trophy text.

Some month ago, i was offered for purchase with karabela that had a cirilic text writen in old slavic, church slavic, crkveni slavenski language, but i skiped it becouse price was a ludacris if that is a word?, price was insane, let me refrase that, price was extremly insane, and sword wasnt up to it, but was nice museum piece, and that was the only one that i saw in person with cirilic text, other i saw on photo.

Whit trophy ones im very careful, there is always posibility of forged text, one guy that i know, purchased a ottoman pistol that is engraved with handwriten cirilic text which says it was taken in a famous battle in balkan, and it doesent match pieces from period from that state in balkan, to be precise it doesent match the way that it is engraved and the style of letters, it stands in the croud and also who ever engraved it it misspeled a place name )