Thanks for the continued insights Jim and Ed.

I think Jim's idea is a good one, it certainly seems like decent steel, but has the absolute minimum of finishing, this is a strange contrast with the well defined and detailed stamp but would seem to fit in with other roughly finished trade blades.

As Jim suggested, perhaps the wasp or hornet was seen as a plausible addition to a pantheon of trade blades that already included the fly and bee.

A big thank you to Jim for digging through your notes and references. I really appreciate it. On the one hand I love these little mysteries because it adds personal value to the piece, having something a little odd and unique, on the other hand it's frustrating not being able to verify what it is exactly!

All the best,

Iain

Thanks very much Iain, and its very much my pleasure adding what I can to the outstanding information you always present. I appreciate Ed's insight as well, and with his most important field work and well informed observations I think we can pretty much rule out native application on this wasp stamp.

I hope perhaps we might find corroborating examples, and possibly with any additional context we mind be able to establish a route for further research into the origins and period of the marking. The use of the wasp actually seems so well placed among the themes in these makings that I felt almost certain I had seen something like it. Apparantly the beehive and fly, as well as perhaps the scorpion were temporally present at the time, but carefully going through these compilations of marks turned up no matches.

Possibly Stephen Wood might have come across this marking in the considerable number of kaskara he has handled, so I hope he reads this and might comment. Meanwhile, the conundrum continues :)

All the best,
Jim

Sorry, can't help with the wasp - but I agree it does not look native applied to me, and I guess has managed to remain in good condition because its in the fuller.

I'm not sure (unless the steel is poor quality?) that a subcontracted or minor maker necessarily is the cause for the poor finishing. Its likely this had a ricasso at some time and the sharpening and local preparing probably is the cause of the less than perfect appearence.

Next post has details of my flex test.

Here is a new and hopefully improved kaskara flex test.

In the pictures I've made a small press to hold the swords - this is not strictly necessary as long as its possible to hold the sword firmly and horizontally so that there is no movement of the hilt when the blade bends.
To this end for a sword with a large pommel you need to either extend the pommel over the press at the back, or as I have done in the picture below, use a pieces of wood to rest the guard on to level the blade. By the way when I did this 'for real' I put a cloth around the grip and pommel to ensure no damage was done - and there is no need to overtighten this - please be careful not to crush anything.

So the test:
1.grip the sword in the press or other device so that the blade is held out horizontally, flat edge upwards.
2. tape a small piece of light wood to the blade so that the end of the wood is at 50cm from the hilt. This is where the weight will be applied and the wood stops it sliding dowm the blade.
3. Get a carrier bag or other light bag and put in 2kg of something (sugar often comes in 1kg bags - so raid the kitchen)
4. Hang the bag on the blade resting against the piece of wood at 50cm from the hilt.
5. Measure the height of the blade from the floor at 60cm (you need this 10cm to allow the ruler to avoid fouling the bag).
6. Remove the weighted bag and read off the height from the floor again at 60cm.
7. Subtract the smaller from the bigger height measure and you have a measure of the flex under fairly standard conditions.



I figure this method can pretty much be applied by anyone (the last time I used another kind of weight), and I think it is pretty easy to get reliable results. Btw it does matter whether the blade is held horizontally before and after you apply the weight (I had not fully realised this last time).

Using the new method I have some new figures for the four kaskara blades:

1. 19C German blade, Kassala mounts: 60 mm
2. Native blade: 49mm
3. W. Clauberg blade: 72mm
4. Unknown blade. 62mm

Flex for the unknown blade lies between the european blades, but the 19C sword is wider so this will affect the flex.

I hope others might try this out with known blades and perhaps it will give us some information we can use for unknown blades.

Chris

Thanks for the detailed instructions. I'll try it out in the next day or two and report back. :)

Back to the wasp sword, blade seems of pretty good quality actually. So more and more the minor sub contractor theory seems to be making sense.

Flex test will maybe tell us more.

wasp-marked sword stats
 

Hi folks, after a wee while here are the stats for Iain's wasp marked sword - which I can happily announce has travelled again, this time from the Czech Republic to Denmark :)

Wasp-marked Kaskara:
Flex 80mm
Length 813mm
Width (base) 35.40mm
Thickness (5cm from base) 4.55 mm
Fuller: 14.0 mm wide 149mm long
Marked: Wasp mark either side.
Ricasso: Vestigial - blade sharpend from 150mm from the hilt, before that profiled to look double edged but not sharp due to the width of steel present.

So this is the whippiest blade of the set, but also the smallest so that is to be expected. For my bet, this is a very strong candidate for a European blade, and the wasp is just great ;)

Incidentally, I'm restoring the rusty blade example from further up the post. Done the blade work already but I'm stumped as to how to find the wicker-like stuff that they use for wrapping the grip - anybody know where I can find something like this?