Cutting Edges

[Jim McDougall]

This is why you are such a good researcher! you dont trust anything, not even yourself.....I can TOTALLY relate, and constantly double and triple check myself...to my dismay finding more errors as time marches on.

As Aylward was among the first books I ever owned in my early days of this stuff back in the late 60s...naturally like other giants like Oakeshott, Wilkinson, Blair, Norman et al....I thought their words were sacrosanct.

So if I understand, the French must have been producing colichemarde blades even before the marked examples?
It seems in Aylward, I think, it was noted that British makers, did not place names on blades (until 18th c.)? Again, must find that reference......there must have been use of markings though, as the Cutlers Co. decreed that there should be no use of others markings by makers on blades. Naturally that was about as effective as the rest of the Cutlers Co. rulings.

Interesting that Shotley never put names of marks on colichemarde blades when they did use at least the fox on conventional small sword blades.
Also the numbers of blades marked SHOTLY BRIDG are known, not sure if any of them had the fox.

Then we come to, how many blades out of Solingen (or even France) came into Shotley for finishing.? Did Shotley ever forge blades?

[urbanspaceman]

Hey Jim.
All hollow bladed colichemardes have a groove, which means they come from SB as there was only ever one machine until, possibly, the Oleys and Moles moving to Birmingham left it behind in SB and built a new one. This is highly likely as it would be a simple task for them in Birmingham.
I am still convinced they were supplying Gill… if not actually working for him, but this is an area I need to search. I've asked Mark Cloke a few times for some help but have had no response. Somebody elevated Gill's forging to Solingen standards – and higher, and I've always wondered who.
Here's that Naval smallsword; I've seen others.
PS, the hilt is almost certainly from Matthew Boulton's Soho factory.

[urbanspaceman]

It seems in Aylward, I think, it was noted that British makers, did not place names on blades (until 18th c.)? Again, must find that reference......there must have been use of markings though, as the Cutlers Co. decreed that there should be no use of others markings by makers on blades. Naturally that was about as effective as the rest of the Cutlers Co. rulings.

I was determined to establish absolutely that colichemarde smallsword blades from SB were not marked, so I un-hilted my silver, boat-shell hilt colichemarde from William Kinman, who seems to have used SB blades a lot, equally for non colichemardes. I wanted to see if there was any tang markings, and there wasn't, but...
When the syndicate were given their royal charter there was a clause that provided for marking the smallsword blades from SB and fines plus confiscation of any unmarked hollow blades traded in the UK. There was no such mark... why? Because only SB could produce the rolled groove, so anything else was easy to spot and confiscate.
In the past I had wondered about that mark until I realised all SB hollow blades had the groove.
Incidentally: one of the bundles of blades confiscated when Mole was arrested for smuggling was all hollow blades, probably for the Newcastle cutler Thomas Carnforth and his customers who didn't like the groove. Never could understand why Mole was smuggling those blades in. There were also hundreds of munition's-grade blades but they were for the Jacobites, as by then, the entire output from SB was going to the Tower and Parliament.