Austro-Hungarian navy sword for comment
 

It has been a while since I bought a european weapon. Last mounth i bought a sword that I belive is the Austro-Hungarian navy sword model 1850/71. Sadly there is no scabbard. I have been looking at all the swords of that model i can find online. The hilt is correct for the model although this exampel seem to be of higher quality then the average one. The blade is marked Eisenhouer and Damaststahl, I can not find any other examples of the 1850/71 with damascus steel blade. The blade construction with the pipeback being flatened to form a false edge towards the tips does not look to me like other exampels of the model where th pipeback runs through the tip of the blade.
There is no makers mark one either the blade or the hilt. And as far as I can tell these swords were used up untill WW1.

I am hoping that some forumite the has more knowlage in these area of collecting can tell mer more about this sword. Is it possible to tell if it is an early or a late model? Any thought on origin or maker. Any thoughts on the blade, is it a replacement or some sort of privete purcase? Any other toughts?

Thank you for your time.
regards Peter

I am no specialist or expert of Austrian navy swords, but perhaps the fotos of a navy officer's sword M 1850/71 which has the same type of blade as your sword, may help a little bit. As far as I know the signature "Eisenhauer" is a sign of quality which says that with this blade you can cut an iron nail without any damage to the edge.
corrado26

Thanks for the information corrado26. I wont be cutting nails any time soon though :D

I’m not too familiar with naval swords either, but this sword looks good quality. These links may be of interest:

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/sho...ng-Naval-Sword

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12450

Congratulations!

The sword in question is an Austrian one, the sword shown in the first link however is a French one, a small, but fine dfference.
corrado26

I know it’s a French sword but if you look through the link again more carefully you will find that it’s an Eisenhauer and Damastahl blade (i.e. German) like the Austro-Hungarian sword discussed in this post. I thought it might be of interest to Drabant.

It was of interest to me, thanks. Seeing the french sword with the german blade made me remember that there is a swedish saber m/1859 that can some times found with damascus steel blades. Those blades often marked Eisenhauer, Damaststahl. While looking for such a sword I found somthing interesting on this link:

https://digitaltmuseum.se/011024401198/sabel-m-1859

The sword in this link actually has the marks in swedish. It says "Jernhuggare" and "Stål Damast". The literal translaten of "jernhuggare" to english is "iron cutter. The blade is made in germany, so at somepoint someone had to translate the meaning of Eisenhauer to swedish. It has the swedish king Carl XVs monogram and he was king between 1859 and 1872, so the sword would be from between those years.

I never saw it written in Swedish before. Solingen was obviously quite customer orientated. You clearly mean that the sword must be from the reign of Carl XV between 1859 and 1872.

Wagner’s Cut & Thrust Weapons has an Austrian naval officer’s sabre, model 1862 on p.449. It looks similar to your beautiful sabre but the blade is etched with the Habsburg double-headed eagle on one side and a crown and anchor on the other.

You are absolutly right, 1859-1872, it has been corrected :)