Shotley Bridge swordmakers

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Mel H

Thank you Ibrahiim another nice mark for my collection, I collected together a picture of every Shotley Bridge name stamping or fox of any type that I saw, in the flesh, as it were, or from books or catalogues, for more than twenty years. I had over sixty different ones and unfortunately lost them all in a hard disc crash a couple of years since. No ones fault but my own, we all know the risks we take in not backing up. I've started again and will keep at it.
I had pictures that showed only the words, sometimes full spellings, sometimes abbreviated and occasionally, together with straight line 'wolf'. they tended to be earlier swords. I can not remember seeing a named one that had a bushy tailed fox. Maybe they wanted to show a sign of quality without giving away the name of the place that they had taken refuge.
One of the things that I remember was that the SH in the Harvey ones was not always in the same place within the body of the fox, which would indicate that the fox may have been stamped onto the blade first then the letters added. It has to be considered that his blades may have been made at Shotley Bridge and stamped there with the trademark together with the additional SH letters, as part of the contract.
Just food for thought.
Having said all of that I'm sure that over the time they were operating there they must have produced a large amount which would mean that they are not as rare as we think they are, we just simply don't recognise them because many were never marked.
Mel.

Mel...Maybe the running Fox never appeared on Shotley swords. Notwithstanding the name given in some quarters ...and reiterated by me ...and noted by Kieth...The Guild of the Running Fox:
.....Wilkinson Sword – the crossed swords logo of that company is believed to have come from the emblem of the “Guild of the Running Fox” – the Shotley Bridge sword makers' guild. The few remaining clues left are the Crown and Crossed Swords pub (originally owned by the Oleys), Cutlers Hall (the guild meeting place, now a private house) and the crossed swords on the old logo of the Shotley Bridge Hospital.
It never stated and I believe never meant to associate bushey fox tails on blades by this guild...but fits in with the Wilkinson crown and crossed swords of course...

But was this a guild that placed bushy tail foxes on blades...? I suspect not...and since none have been found ? What did that mean? Did it perhaps mean that the so called running fox of Shotley was in fact the wolf of Passau...? and that the running Fox wasn't being used at Shotley... but the Passau Wolf was...because the sword makers were all Solingen people...When Birmingham kicked in they used the Bushey tail Fox.... often if not all done by SH Samuel Harvey in Birmingham. Birmingham is much nearer Stratford than Shotley Bridge is... and it was W. Shakespeare who noted the Fox sword in his plays...and where did he live? Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon ...but anyway he had a house in London as well. Surely if Shotley had been turning out bushey tailed fox swords there would be loads of them about... There aren't any... I think I have only seen one probably spuriously applied..

[urbanspaceman]

This was the sale that began to convince me (see image); I called the auctioneer and asked him how he knew it was an Oley blade and he said the vendor had come from nearby SB and had personal experience of its provenance. The bushy tailed fox is obvious.
It also matches the style of sword Nicholas Oley is seen holding that was his grandfather's final sword (i.e. c.1830) so we know Oley was making this style of sword in the 1800s.[IMG]

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams Kieth ~ Some caution here...I suspect the auctioneer is being frugal with the truth of the matter...and anyone who says he had some personal experience...what does that mean?... is implying a whole lot...if it is to be believed. The sword may be vaguely similar in structure to the black and white picture but is it absolute proof ? It's a difficult one... Can someone show another Shotley Bridge sword with a bushy tail Fox on it... ? If they were using that motif there should be hundreds or thousands out there...and there are none to my knowledge.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

I would venture further that there is a mix up with the Guild of the Running Fox and the apparent use of a Crown and Crossed Sword seen on Wilkinson Swords, the bushy tail Fox emblem..and the Passau Wolf form.

In my view the animal placed by Shotley swordmakers was the Wolf. The same as the Wolf of Passau.

The Bushey Tail Fox emblem was I suspect only put by one swordmaker.. SH Samuel Harvey in Birmingham.


.

[urbanspaceman]

This may be a stupid question to the cognoscenti, but I confess to being a novice as you should know by now, so here goes:
Solingen apparently had the famous 'hollow' grinding machine causing much unrest in the 1680s; has anyone seen a hollow-blade/colichmarde marked from Solingen.
This was before Klingenthal and before Shotley Bridge; who else could be supplying the French? Were the blades from Solingen going to France signed in any way?

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Here is an example of the many swords mistakenly presented as from Shotley... In this case said to have been; A scarce late 17th Century Shotley Bridge sword, with 33 1/2in. blade and three-quarter length fuller bearing the Running Wolf mark with the initials `SH` incorporated, brass knuckle guard and wire-bound shark skin grip, 40in. long overall; contained in a modern mahogany presentation case. ~ But a more spurious description there can hardly be ...since this is a Samuel Harvey Birmingham sword. The so called running wolf in this case likely to be a Bushy Tail Fox! with the initials SH inside that.

Samuel Harvey (born 1698) who was making swords between 1748 until his death in 1778 his mark was the running fox which can usually be clearly seen on both sides of the blade. The family business was continued by his son and grandson of the same name, the last of which died in 1810.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

This may be a stupid question to the cognoscenti, but I confess to being a novice as you should know by now, so here goes:
Solingen apparently had the famous 'hollow' grinding machine causing much unrest in the 1680s; has anyone seen a hollow-blade/colichmarde marked from Solingen.
This was before Klingenthal and before Shotley Bridge; who else could be supplying the French? Were the blades from Solingen going to France signed in any way?

Salaams Kieth,
See http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16753

The whole thread is less than a page but is important reading. There is another example at #22 on that thread.. Clearly Solingen were exporting to France swords for refinishing but the essential German data was included on the blades.

Obviously the German sword makers of Solingen were confident that their Colichemarde blade machines could not be copied and in this regard they appear to have been right.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Regarding Samuel Harvey and at http://doczz.net/doc/617698/british-...%94an-overview It is noted that Samuel Harvey had a son Samuel Jr. who continued the business til 1795 viz;

Quote"Some research with cutlasses having viewer’s
marks and manufacturers names also enables one to generally identify the supplier according to the viewer mark.
Plate 29 on reference shows the hilts for three of these cutlasses.
The one on the left is early and without a viewers mark indicating it predates 1788. The blade has a spear point and is 28
1/2 inches long and 1 3/16 inch wide. It is marked with a
running fox and Harvey on the reverse and a different fox
like mark on the British. The iron hilt is solid (no seam), its
disks are essentially round, and the turned down quillon is
relatively wide. Samuel Harvey Sr. was a Birmingham sword
maker that provided cutlasses to the Royal Navy from 1748
to 1778 and his son, Samuel Jr. continued through 1795.
The absence of viewer marks would indicate that Harvey Sr,
made this cutlass.
The middle one is a later version of a similar cutlass.
The blade is similar but slightly shorter—27 1/2 inches long
and 1 1/4 inch wide. It is marked with a Crown/4 viewers
mark, and a running fox with initials (undecipherable) on
the guard. There are also undecipherable marks on the blade
tip. The disks are oblong, the iron hilt has a seam, and the
turned down quillon is relatively narrow. The viewer’s mark
indicates this cutlass was supplied by Gill, another
Birmingham supplier (1783–1803)"Unquote.

[urbanspaceman]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

Salaams Kieth,
Obviously the German sword makers of Solingen were confident that their Colichemarde blade machines could not be copied and in this regard they appear to have been right.

Thank-you Ibrahiim, that is exactly what I was looking for.
So, my questions now are these: if such swords exist i.e. the ones finished in France from Solingen blades, and are relatively easy to locate, where are the British equivalents?
While I am inclined to agree with the apparent singularity of the grinding mill, I cannot understand why applications for patents were attempted prior to 1685, if no-one here in Britain had 'the machine'. Unless they thought they could either make one... or procure one.
And why not set-up shop anyway? If no-one else had a machine, they didn't need a patent, other than to protect themselves from Solingen imports. There's something fishy about this whole business. It sounds to me like they were attempting to corner the market on Solingen hollow-blade imports, not make the blades themselves.
If anyone, prepared to pay or smuggle, could nip over to Rotterdam and pick up a chest of hollow blades, then only the smiths in Solingen and the finishers here were going to profit. The patent applications were from blade-smiths and grinders, hence my suspicions.