Lot 527
A mid 18th century Scottish Basket Hilted Military Broadsword
Auction: 17 August 2009 at 15:00 BST
Description
the basket composed of panels and round section bars, the side and knuckle plates are pierced with hearts and holes and are multi grooved, the outer shield is framed by two parallel lines of grooving and has a series of holes within this frame, otherwise it is pierced with hearts and central hole with the inner shield being replaced by a ring. The forward guards are fairly deep and the small pommel is decorated with four semi circular grooves, there is a small tang button. The arms of the hilt sit in an equatorial groove in the pommel. The spirally grooved wooden grip has an iron ferrule at the base of the base of the basket. The earlier massive German blade is 1 1/2" wide at the ricasso and is parallel sided to within a few inches of the point, it has two short fullers flanking the ricasso between which is an unidentified sword smith's mark on both sides, there are three long fullers from the ricasso to within 7" of the point, the central fuller bearing the mark 'Andria Ferara'
Dimensions
Overall length 42 1/2" Blade 36 3/4"