A Scottish “Horseman’s” Basket Hilted Sabre dating to circa 1740

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Price: £2,400

Ref: AA.08932

Item Description

A Scottish basket hilted sabre dating towards the middle of the 18th century and the period surrounding the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. The guard is fashioned from forged iron bars of rounded rectangular section with the spaces infilled with flat secondary and primary guard panels. This design of hilt is for a horseman and formed with only one, instead of two, primary guard plates to the front, replacing one with the typical oval ring for a horseman’s hilt. The curved blade is robust and well forged and of a curved type not often found on Scottish basket hilted swords.

The front guard panel is decorated in traditional style. It has fretted edges and  vertical and horizontal incised border lines towards the panel edges to form a square. Inside the square a circle is pierced into the centre surrounded by boldly cut hearts and circles. The side panels and the knuckle bow to the front are finished with heart shapes above and below pierced patterns of four circles. The side guard panels have merlons at the base also pierced with hearts in the middle.

The dome-shaped pommel has a waisted button on top and is decorated with three sets of equally spaced incised and filed lines which radiate from the button, the middle line being wider than those on each side in each case. The spaces between are decorated with similar line forms in crescent shapes. The upper guard arm terminals of the basket fit into a chiselled groove which extends for the full circumference of the pommel just below its middle to secure the structure. The blade shoulders sit in a groove chiselled into the cross guard bar underneath the hilt.

The spirally grooved wooden baluster shaped grip is missing its cover and wire binding. The hilt retains a thick leather liner at the base of the grip.

The blade is has a pronounced fuller extending from the hilt under the blunt back edge and terminates 7 inches (18 cm) from the tip after which it is double edged. A second fuller extends underneath the first almost to the blade tip. A blade maker’s mark consisting of the letters “C H” in raised relief are present inside a depressed panel separated by a cruciform shape. The panel is flanked by two further small stamped marks of approximate fleur de lys shape. The blade is most likely of Solingen manufacture but the maker’s mark is unknown.

For Scottish swords of contemporary and different styles see Cyril Mazansky, “British Basket-Hilted Swords”, The Boydell Press, 2005.

The overall length of the sword is 35.5 inches (90 cm) and the blade is 29.5 inches (75 cm) long.