Spanish ?? I.D. Help Needed

[Rikkn]

I looked through the doggy marks also, what does it all mean ? I will take pictures of the whole sword & scabbard & post them in a little while.

[Rikkn]

More pictures. Blade is 28" long, overall sword is 34.5 " long. Blade tapers from 5/8 " to 1/8" just before tip. Scabbard is 30" long, has the number 19 over the screw near opening.

[cornelistromp]

Hi,

I don't see any running wolf mark, but see clearly the woording TOLEDO,
with a proper 17thC E and proper 17thC D.
the long olive shaped pommel together with the non functional pas d'ane ( 18thc size, you will break your finger if you put one through the pas d'ane) together with the rococo diamond shaped chiseling at the pommel foot and spirally fluted grip as seen on 1750 silver hilted small swords makes me date date the hilt in the second part of the 18thC, 1750-1800. the blade is probably 100 years older.

with the shell guards it can be a late 18thC (Spanish?) marine officer small sword.

Best,

[fernando]

Very good and solid impressions Jasper.
By the way, the mentioning of the running wolf mark by Celtan was only a part of his dissertation ... not that he was seeing it.
The scabbard must be a much later addition, right?

[Atlantia]

Originally Posted by fernando

Very good and solid impressions Jasper.
By the way, the mentioning of the running wolf mark by Celtan was only a part of his dissertation ... not that he was seeing it.
The scabbard must be a much later addition, right?

The scabbard looks decidedly 19thC, later part at that.

[celtan]

Hi Guys,

The scabbard is obviously late 19th C.

The use of the Wolf/Dog by spanish armourers as mark of a quality blade in the 15th C, long before Passau and subsequently Solingen, is very well documented. It is also well established the presence of both German armourers in Toledo, and later that of Spanish Armourers in Passau and Solingen.

The early armourers were mostly spanish muslims, like famed Julian del Rey. It is said that they couldn't have used a dog as a quality symbol, because in their culture, a dog was considered a dirty, lower type of animal. It is thus more likely that the symbol represented instead a wolf, and that subsequent folklore instead denigrated it to a "perrillo", or literally a "doggy". The Spanish do have an ingrained tendency to mock everything.

In fact, Don Enrique de Leguina states in his work that the German and Spanish marks could not be distinguished from each other: "Lleva la marca, rellena de cobre, llamada en España del «perrillo», y en Alemania «del lobo»: la primera atribuida al célebre espadero español Julián del Rey, y la segunda a espaderos de Passau y de Solingen, sin que hasta ahora haya sido posible distinguir en absoluto unas de otras"

Julian del Rey shows this mark only on his _cutting_ swords, it has been proposed that the mark itself was originally a quality blade seal applied by the Sword Makers Guild. Indeed, Julian's usual trademark was a cross.

Please refer to . LAMARCA DEL PERRILLO DEL ESPADERO ESPAÑOL
JULIAN DEL REY by J. J. Rodriguez Lorente.

Regarding the pas d'ane, I have owned similar swords to this one and theirs were fully functional, allowing me to insert my large fingers trough their openings, stablizing my grip on the sword. From my end, this one looks identical to those.

BTW, olive type pommels were used in Spain since the mid 16th C. The blade "feels" 17th C to me.

The double clamshell guard was seen in Spain from around the times of Gustavus Adolphus (Mid to late 17th C), my suspicion being they were introduced as an adaptation from the german / Pappenheimer's guard.

Taking everything into account, plus all the spanish swords I have handled at museums, I'd still place this one around 1720.

Last but not least, our "Maestre Perrillo" was only one of many spanish armourers using the doggy/wolf mark. Rememeber, in Spain there were about 15 major armouries making swords. Just check the enclosed image.

'Nando, glad that you're following my dissertation..!

: )

[Hotspur]

Modern fencers and students of smallsword play have mentioned the small pas d'ane as perhaps vestigal but that the grip of a smallsword was meant to use pinching between thumb and forefinger for steearge. This has borne out my own ad hoc experiences in manipulating the hilts of quite a few seemingly uncomfortable hilts but rotating the sword 90 degrees puts the tillers of the pas d'ane or indeed none at all in the manner of spadroons at better ease especially with shorter grips. Hard to describe and I am probably not conveying it well. They are not meant to be finger rings, in the sense many suggest.

non functional pas d'ane ( 18thc size, you will break your finger if you put one through the pas d'ane)

Thanks also for the additional running wolf marks and considerations. As the mark clearly shows up on blades back to the 14th century (we see these on cruciform types and larger bastards with inlay in latten and gold) more information is certainly better than not enough. The wolf is also regarded in the coat of arms for Passau. I do also have some notes regarding Solihngen and the migration there by the smiths while discontinuing the mark,as its use had been local. There is a somewhat simlar discussion of the wolf recently here. My own thoughts and regard of the uses and variety that turn have no partisan interests implied or inferred.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12289

The scabbard a later addition, absolutely.

Cheers

GC

Another earlier discussion elsewhere on the wolf


http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79247

Old Herman Historica page

http://www.hermann-historica.de/aukt...db=kat49_A.txt

Another as a PS

http://ejmas.com/jwma/articles/2000/...ville_0100.htm

It is undoubtedly Ewart Oakeshott and his writings that influences a great many (including myself) but I am also wide open for other source work while remaining as objective as possible.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by celtan

... The early armourers were mostly spanish muslims, like famed Julian del Rey. It is said that they couldn't have used a dog as a quality symbol, because in their culture, a dog was considered a dirty, lower type of animal. It is thus more likely that the symbol represented instead a wolf, and that subsequent folklore instead denigrated it to a "perrillo", or literally a "doggy"...

Well, the number of interpretations was quite vast; a dog, a wolf, a goat and eventually a lion. It all depended from the author's point of view. After all, the drawing shown by Palomar in his nomina was his own hand copy of the animal engraved by Del Rey in (some of ?) his swords; it didn't have to be so faithfull to the original.
Tell me Don Iravedra, do you know an article on this subject written by Germán Dueñas Beraiz ? It is quite interesting.
A pity is written in Castillian, not so practical to be perused by non Spanish speaking members.
I have it in PDF format; too heavy to attach here. But if you wish, i can email it to you ... and to those others also interested, obviously.

.