The "Bushy Tailed Fox" story

[urbanspaceman]

The first sword I ever bought – in 2017 - was this 1740s/50s cavalry hangar with the distinctive BTF. I bought it because I had seen a similar sword sold at auction a few years previously and attributed to the Oley family of SB.
Then I found a 1960s newspaper photo of an Oley descendant and village resident holding what he claimed was the last sword ever forged in the village. It is perfectly clear it is a mid.1700s hangar with a typical brass hilt.
I was suspicious, because I wondered how and/or where it had been hilted then remained in the village. At that time I was not aware of the Wilson family of SB who had been sword slippers even before the arrival of the Solingen diaspora, hilting blades made by Bertram at Allensford (upstream from SB) as early as 1670.
Anyway, it was obviously not the last sword made in the village but probably a rare remaining article perhaps passed down through the generations. It was, however, as I subsequently discovered, the same sword sold in auction and was indeed a product of the Oley family. It featured the BTF alone.
For some time I asked around locally if the BTF was a product of the Oleys and the answer was always yes. I asked nationally – and globally – if this was true and everyone said it was the mark of the Harveys. My follow-up question was always "Why are there no initials?" but this was never answered so I began my quest to establish that it was an Oley mark. When the smallsword (previously displayed) appeared in an auction archive with details of the village name script and – on enlarging it – also a BTF, I knew I had established my theory.