Austrian hussar sabre for ID

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by corrado26

Here come two fotos of a Prussian husar sabre with a very faint notch at the back of its blade - maybe it is nothing else than a light damage....
corrado26

When I first noticed the 'notches' in the drawings of Austrian swords in the Wagner book, I thought at first the same thing, must be damage.
But then as I looked at the other drawings (about 6 if I recall), they all had the same notch....then in reading the text, I found that Wagner had surmised these 'notches' were for aggravating wounds.

I checked the references for the source weapons Wagner had used, and wrote to the museums noted to acquire actual photos of the subject weapons.
In each case, the photos revealed that the notches were indeed there.

In the case you have posted here, the blade has TWO very shallow notches. These clearly would serve no utility purpose, and why two?
It can be seen they are deliberately placed.