Colichemardes: re-started from hi-jacked thread

[cornelistromp]

I would like to recommend the following publication for Dutch major production centres, imports from the various foreign production centers, including Solingen and for export to anyone who needed weapons and equipment with short lead times.

[urbanspaceman]

Thank-you, it certainly looks like a very suitable book to answer my question but it is not available in all the places I searched today.
In complete frankness, I have no profound interest in the overall subject, just in the detail I requested and that, in itself, was of minimal consequence, just one of the many questions that have remained unanswered during my five years of research into the Shotley Bridge story.
I have a list of unexplored issues put aside due to time constraints and narrative necessity; so now my book is finished, it is simply a matter of turning my attention to some of those questions when I find an opportunity, purely in order to satisfy my curiosity.
The question of Solingen workers in the Netherlands was one of those issues. I know trade was conducted out of Rotterdam, but wondered if there were manufactories also.
Again, thank-you Cornelis, for your recommendation, I will continue to look for the book.

[Interested Party]

So many years ago the fencing master I was studying with spoke on this subject. I have no sources to collaborate my following statements. It is just one man's opinion filtered through my flawed memory. I found the subject fascinating and always hoped to collect a Colichemarde because of this class. We did not get into methods of manufacture. It was a bit outside of the martials arts focus of the class. He said that the groove and subsequent rib in question were for a tactical advantage. The grove lightened the blade and the rib strengthened and stiffened a stabbing weapon. Of course taking away cutting power. He called this basic type of blade an epee and in his presence only blades with this grove were to be referred to as epees. The collecting world seems to disagree with this designation and this was confusing for me for a long time. So far elementary. Now for the debatable portion cogent to urbanspaceman's topic. He went on to say that while this innovation was highly effective creating a very fast moving, agile, point that was still very strong, with an edge that was thin enough to sharpen to discourage grabbing the foible of the blade. In England due to it's swordsman ship being cut and thrust based and the high death rate on the continent of the upper-class in non-military conflicts these innovations were frowned upon a bit and regulated particularly in combination with the weighty, wide forte to defend against heavier swords, including the cut and thrust variety. Creating a weapon too dangerous for civilian use. That said I was surprised to learn of a machine to create this innovation in England. Were the blades made mainly for export?

[urbanspaceman]

Much of the enduring tale of the German swordmakers of Shotley Bridge was based on myth, fallacy and deliberate obfuscation; this encouraged some chroniclers to either abandon or simply replicate the task… understandably. This is why it has taken five years of concentrated research to establish a clear, focused and legitimate narrative.
However, at the heart of the tale always lay the 'secret machine' that supposedly gave the Germans a distinct advantage in the manufacture of hollow blades for smallswords, and was cited as the reason for granting a royal charter to the syndicate financiers. Truth be told, we have to question where their competition lay: Solingen imports were tariffed and heavily taxed in the late 1600s.
Much conjecture and controversy attended the existence and design of this machine, which actually persisted all throughout my research period.
As I stated in an earlier posting, it was never possible to design a machine that could fabricate the decreasing radius hollows mechanically in a single pass, and it still isn't; although I suspect I might have come very close.
What I discovered, was that there were two machines, with the second model designed by Huguenots in Solingen on or before 1630. This was the rolling machine I described in that earlier post that was used to produce colichemarde blades and lower priced battlefield-ready smallswords: some with sharpened edges. It was eventually railroaded out of Germany in 1687 in a typical Luddite exercise, as they were not short of manual labour: again thanks to the invasion of Huguenots.
In a previous posting I referred to the scarcity of colichemardes in comparison to regular hollow-blade smallswords; I propose a similar reason as many experts, in that the colichemarde is actually neither use nor ornament, and any sensible officer contemplating battlefield sword-fighting would have nothing to do with them. Maybe off-duty officers, forever on their guard, might have taken them up… but not many.
Was this machine in use in Solingen? I suspect not. Did colichemarde blades ever come out of Solingen? If they did, they would not feature a groove rather than the hollow - at least - not after 1687 anyway: hence my interest in finding such a blade.
This is one of those issues I put on the back burner as it was not critical to my research; but now my book is finished and TV production is at a virtual standstill, I can indulge.
NB I believe the business of an efficacious thrust rather than a debateable cut was first highlighted during the Peninsular War by British medics commenting on the survival rate of the French, but this is not an area I have explored as it is purely peripheral to my principle narrative and not on my list of indulgences: feel free to disabuse.