Curvey Georgian Grenadiers Sabre

[Radboud]

Try and say that three times out loud...

Jokes aside I have recently received an early 19th-century British Grenadier officer's sabre with a very large and highly curved blade. The style of the hilt follows the 1803 Pattern 'flank officers' sabre but it isn't true to the pattern, lacking the Crowned GR cypher normally found.









This could mean that the sabre predates the 1803 Pattern, as this Pattern was already a variation on what 'flank' and some line officers had started to carry with the loosening of regulations in 1800 (allowing Grenadier and Light Company officers to carry sabres).

As we've talked about previously, military fashion played an important role in Georgian (and other European) society, especially Hussar fashion. And around the last two decades of the 18th Century, it became fashionable (and more practical) for infantry officers to carry sabres and hangers in place of smallswords, backswords or broadswords.

After encountering the Mamelukes in Egypt, with their wickedly effective shamshirs, highly curved blades became all the rage in Great Britain.

Unfortunately, the resulting blades often misinterpreted correct shamshir blade geometry and resulted in a weapon that was more show than function, especially when combined with the fighting style most officers learned.

This sword is such an example; this image shows my 1803 Pattern Swords with the Grenadier Sabre. Their blade length and curve are as follows:



1. 1803 by Prosser: length 80.7cm Curve 5.1cm
2. 1803 by Bennett: length 81.2cm Curve 5.5cm
3. 1803 By Griffin & Adams: length 76cm Curve 7.3cm
4. Grenadiers Sabre: length 82.2cm curve 11.4cm
(both the Prosser and the Bennert use blades imported by J J Runkel).

Regrettably, the blade is unmarked and this particular style of guard doesn't appear in any of my sources. Has anyone here seen this guard before and his it been attributed to any regiment or militia unit?

Thank you.