Anglo-Indian army swords

[mrcjgscott]

Originally Posted by Silver John

I don't know if it'll be any help in identifying the origins, but the six characters on the top picture look like: Ri Ya S Ta Ha Taa.

Not sure about the 5th character as it's a bit blurred.

On the other example. The numbers are 1 and 4. The two characters look like Ga and Ja though there are additional marks on them (vowel diacritics? that I don't recognise)

Hi Silver John,

Many thanks for posting these up, most interesting.I shall give some thought to what your translation might signify.

One of the hilts shows some letters under the crest. I will tidy this up a little and take some better quality images, as this might reveal the state of origin with any luck.

I envy your ability with deciphering the characters, I have tried many times to get my head around it, but to no avail. Your efforts are much appreciated!

Originally Posted by sirupate

Some lovely swords you have there Chris, thank you for the info about Mole being bought out by Wilkinson

Thank you Simon,

Some of them took a long time to track down.

RWL wrote a history of Wilkinson a few years back, I can try and find the details if it might be of interest?

Kind regards,

Chris

[mrcjgscott]

Here are examples of the sword carried by the 33rd Cavalry.

The officers sword utilizes the 1821 "Honeysuckle" style guard, and the lower sword, for troopers, is based upon the 1908 cavalry sword.

If memory serves, the troopers sword was produced by B. Boota Singh and Son, of Rawalpindi. They obviously held several Indian Government contracts, as they also produced high quality kukri during WW1.

[mrcjgscott]

Another shot, alongside a standard British 1908.

[sirupate]

If you could dig up the details Chris, that would be great

[mrcjgscott]

"Mr Wilkinson of Pall Mall", by Robert Wilkinson Latham. Volume One 1772-1899, and Volume Two 1900-1972.

[Silver John]

Sorry to keep clogging this thread with more waffle, if I wasn't still in modded status I'd have tried to edit it all into one post.

Just discovered that Riyasata means something like Principality. So the last two characters are the key. If you can get a clearer pic it might be possible to establish which Principality it came from.

[mrcjgscott]

Silver John that is brilliant work, many thanks indeed!

I will give the thing a good once over to clean the gunk out, and get back to you with better images.

Kind regards,

Chris

[Silver John]

Originally Posted by mrcjgscott

One of the hilts shows some letters under the crest. I will tidy this up a little and take some better quality images, as this might reveal the state of origin with any luck.

That would be interesting to see.

I do not have enough knowledge on the topic to say with any confidence, but I believe the inscription is Marathi.

When I'm attempting these translations, I write down what I think it says and then type that into a program that converts roman alphabet into a range of Indian sub continent scripts. If I get a match, I know I'm getting better! The first character, Ri, only looks like that when I select the Marathi option. It is different in Hindi, still devanagari script, just a different way of putting it together. All the other characters remain the same however.

Perhaps this is a hint that it came from Maharashtra state? Or somewhere nearby?