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Lot 170

An Unusual Basket-Hilted Broadsword
Late 18th Century

Antique Arms and Armour

24 April 2013, 11:00 BST

London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £1,062.50 inc. premium

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An Unusual Basket-Hilted Broadsword
Late 18th Century

With broad tapering double-edged blade, iron guard of slender bars of flattened rounded section riveted at the bottom to a pierced base-plate, the former framing oval side-plates pierced with circles, tapering central plate with triangular and small oval piercings centred on a star, and flanked by pairs of bars each shaped in the centre to form a saltire, the latter with scrolled wrist-guard and riveted fore-guards, conical pommel incised with pairs of converging lines, and grip bound with twisted iron wire (light pitting overall)
93.4 cm. blade

Footnotes

This form of sword is thought to have been produced in France, possibly for exiled Jacobites. For a similar example in the Marishal Museum, University of Aberdeen, see Cyril Mazansky, British Basket-Hilted Swords, 2005, p. 188, K2 (illustrated); and another example sold in these Rooms, 25 July 2007, lot 140

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