Austrian Felddegen / campaign sword

[shayde78]

Originally Posted by AHorsa

As the "Wirsberg"-blades have the same shape and similar floral decoration as well as (in one case) a Turk´s head, I wonder if this sword can be date into the 2nd quarter of the 17th c rather than the last quarter or beginning of 18th c. But how does the turk´s head fits in that time, as they were more common during and after the great Turkish wars (1683-1699). Or am I wrong and the heads where already common earlier or are the blades later?

Kind regards
Andreas

Your question called to mind a recent publication of an ancient artifact that has been restored that suggests the 'Turks Head' design has existed for a long time. I'm not sure when it was first applied to weapons, but I suspect long before someone thought to label them ”Turks Heads".
To avoid hijacking this thread, I have posted a photo of the artifact in questions here: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...463#post268463

[toaster5sqn]

Sorry Andreas but the museum has no information on the provenance of their sword. In fact until I corrected them they had it labelled as a rapier!

Basically any swords older than 200 years in NZ were brought into the country by a collector and then dumped on the museum by their descendants when no one wanted it. Our ability to improve their knowledge is one of the reasons the museum is so happy to allow the Auckland swords & shields society access to the collection, but it does highlight just how dreadful their knowledge base is.

Robert

[AHorsa]

Originally Posted by shayde78

Your question called to mind a recent publication of an ancient artifact that has been restored that suggests the 'Turks Head' design has existed for a long time. I'm not sure when it was first applied to weapons, but I suspect long before someone thought to label them ”Turks Heads".
To avoid hijacking this thread, I have posted a photo of the artifact in questions here: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...463#post268463

That´s an interesting object! Thanks for sharing. But I think in this context it is a misunderstanding: The Turk Heads I was writing about are the ones engraved in the blade, not the wire work

[shayde78]

Originally Posted by AHorsa

That´s an interesting object! Thanks for sharing. But I think in this context it is a misunderstanding: The Turk Heads I was writing about are the ones engraved in the blade, not the wire work

Ah! Quite right!
My mistake