Shotley Bridge swordmakers

[Mel H]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

Harvey; Example of Sword blade mark. ...A British Militia Sword - maker Samuel Harvey (no scabbard) Marked to Rutland Militia. A nice militia sword 28'' polished curved blade, once polished, but now dark. A few lightly pitted areas, but the blade is pretty good. Maker marked on both sides with a running wolf and SH (Samuel Harvey - swordsmith in Birmingham 1730-1748) Brass heart-shaped hilt, with a turned down short quillon. Wooden handle, round pommel.

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.