'Rose' Mark on the spine of Solingen blades

[Jim McDougall]

Radboud, again, it is amazing to have this discussion on this topic, and particularly noting the part played by Solingen in actual blade decoration.
I am glad you joined us Bryce! now both 'top guns' in this field of collecting are here! and gentlemen, quite honestly I defer to your well founded expertise.

The outstanding examples both of you have prolifically shared here over the years reflect the remarkable knowledge and experience you have gained in collecting and studying them, and I very much appreciate your openly sharing and discussing it here.

Radboud, your rebuttal is well thought out and worded, and your well parsed note on my comment on 'exception' referring to the Solingen production characteristics was well placed. The word exception did not well carry what I meant. I had been under the impression that while Solingen was of course primarily a blade making center, the business of decorating blades was left to the cutlers ,case in point here Great Britain, who bought the blades for mounting.

Naturally as officers bought their swords typically commissioned by outfitters who were often also jewelers, workers in precious metals and privately commissioned. Naturally Solingen had artisans who also decorated blades, but I had thought that commissioning a sword for an officer would likely be more personally achieved with a local outfitter he was familiar with.

It makes sense that already decorated blades with more and less 'generic' themes would be available from Solingen and now I recall that in the case of the blades on the initial run of the unique sabers for the officers of the 10th Prince of Wales Hussars were Solingen decorated. As I recall, the Prince, who was like his father, keen on military, particularly fashion oriented, matters, and had ordered a number of blades for custom made sabers earlier.
These were blades of 'exotic' Persian type blades (with yelman) and decorated with the popular themes well known in Europe. In 1809 or 1810 he commissioned Prosser to assemble sabers for his officers will specially designed hilt.....I believe there were 27 in all.

I have had one of these (in notably horrible condition) acquired over 40 years ago, in the time I was collecting British cavalry swords, but the blued blade decoration is long gone.
This does of course support the fact that Solingen did indeed provide fully decorated blades, as you guys assert. As you note Radboud, we cannot know the degree or percentage of such work.

Your point that there were noted intermediaries such as S&K, Runkel et al who acquired blades from the swordsmiths and sold them to cutlers, mostly in Great Britain. Naturally, many such blades might be sold to same in other countries. The 'variation', another term I used, would derive from the fact that cutlers often acquired elements for hilt assembly from other vendors.

Your note on the time frame for the ubiquitous ANDREA FERARA, SAHAGUM et al blades is of course correct, and I had neglected to state that the Solingen use of these had pretty much waned by mid 18th century, if not earlier.

Thank you again guys, it is really good to get back in the saddle again on the British swords, its been about a 40 year 'minute' aside from a occasional foray back into the field, and amazing to see how much has been discovered and well learned, especially by both of you, and by Richard Dellar, whose excellent reference "The British Cavalry Sword: Some New Perspectives" truly rekindled old interests.

Back to the topic, it would seem that the 'rose' was a somewhat varied floral style device placed on the blade spine near the forte, sometimes somewhat en suite with the decorated panels of the blade at the forte, and seemingly a Solingen convention in the period c. 1780s-1810-20. It will be interesting to discover the source of this distinct device and if it was unique only to Solingen, or if its presence elsewhere was the result of the ubiquitous use of decorated blades from Solingen by other countries and states.