Pommel Ring on British Dragoon Swords 18th c.

Jim McDougall · 12th December 2022, 03:37 PM

Thanks very much.............turns out all I have at the moment is Bezdek, my Robson is the old one (1975, which is about beat to death as I've had it since then); Wilkinson-Latham I have but not here.

I see what you mean on p.342 in Bezdek. That is a commemorative dragoon sword for an officer of loyal North British volunteers c.1790. It makes sense that they would use the older features in creating this sword.

In looking into these pommel rings, my goal has been to get an idea of when these began in use in British cavalry swords and roughly how long the feature remained in place. As suggested earlier, it is possible that certain makers might have kept the design in place longer than others, as swords were privately commissioned by the colonels of regiments and not officially regulated.

There were of course numerous variations of dragoon swords due to this.
Also, I would not expect there to be an exact terminus ante quem for the occurrence of the 'pommel ring'. There were bound to be instances of these in later sword hilts, and with the very attractive example from Bezdek (p.342) this is as noted a commemorative type and as such understandably rare, as noted by Bezdek. This was to the Loyalist North British Volunteers, again denoting the 'pommel ring' to British rather than specifically Scottish weapons.

Thank you for specifying the other examples, I'll check them further.

12th December 2022, 03:37 PM	#14
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,189	Thanks very much.............turns out all I have at the moment is Bezdek, my Robson is the old one (1975, which is about beat to death as I've had it since then); Wilkinson-Latham I have but not here. I see what you mean on p.342 in Bezdek. That is a commemorative dragoon sword for an officer of loyal North British volunteers c.1790. It makes sense that they would use the older features in creating this sword. In looking into these pommel rings, my goal has been to get an idea of when these began in use in British cavalry swords and roughly how long the feature remained in place. As suggested earlier, it is possible that certain makers might have kept the design in place longer than others, as swords were privately commissioned by the colonels of regiments and not officially regulated. There were of course numerous variations of dragoon swords due to this. Also, I would not expect there to be an exact terminus ante quem for the occurrence of the 'pommel ring'. There were bound to be instances of these in later sword hilts, and with the very attractive example from Bezdek (p.342) this is as noted a commemorative type and as such understandably rare, as noted by Bezdek. This was to the Loyalist North British Volunteers, again denoting the 'pommel ring' to British rather than specifically Scottish weapons. Thank you for specifying the other examples, I'll check them further.