French colichemarde

[Radboud]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

There seems to have been a rather wide variety of hilt styles with this pattern: mine (shown earlier) is different again with the pronounced double quillons.

Hi Keith, why do you think the smallsword you posted has a m1767 hilt on it?

All the attributed examples I've seen follow a fairly uniform (for the time) pattern. As seen in the texts I've posted above.

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

What is most unusual is to have that French hilt on a Shotley Bridge blade.
I suppose French cuttlers could have access to London merchants during that period.

When I run my finger along the inside of the fuller/grove in the back of the blade, it isn't completely uniform. There is a noticable change in depth closer to the tip of the blade. This is different to my English smallsword which also has a grove (but no colichemarde), which is very uniform. Maybe the French blade was hand forged or not a Shotley Bridge supplied blade.

Re Matt Easton, I haven't asked him about my sword, I don't think he attributed any model to it when he had it.