The ricasso and spine of the blade are signed by the maker ‘Robt Mole & Sons Birmingham’. The gilt panels feature Crown VR (Victoria Regina) foliate devices and heraldic arms. It has a 31 ¼” blade with gilt panels on a field of blue that ends in a maltese cross in the mid section of the blade (36 ¼” overall). The high quality & form of the sword would indicate that it may have been carried by a Court or Parliament Guards Officer. This is an unknown Victorian pattern of sword made by Mole & Sons. Robert Mole and Sons of Birmingham (1835-1920) supplied swords and bayonets to the War Office, the Admiralty and the Government of India as well as for private and trade customers.
**QUALITY**British Robert Mole & Sons Birmingham Sword With Blued & Gilt Etched Blade Ornate Gilt Crown Pommel & Lion With Crown Guard. One of the nicest small swords we have had. The throat mount is stipple engraved with ‘Cullen King’s Cutler Charing Cross’ (M.Cullen was a cutler / sword maker to King George III and had premises at 9 Charing Cross London from C1770 -1797 when the business was then taken over by John Prosser, this dates the sword to the third quarter of the 18th century. The rare to find scabbard is brown leather with brass chape and 2 brass mounts fitted with 2 brass hanging rings. It has a brass oval guard with ribbed sun ray decoration, brass knuckle guard and brass urn shaped pommel. This beautiful small sword with 30 ¾” Colichemarde blade is etched with stands of arms panels to the front and rear. This configuration combines good parrying characteristics, due to the wide blade forte, with the good maneuverability and thrusting characteristics imparted by the narrow blade point). The blade cross section was most often triangular and hollow-ground. It has ‘Colichemarde’ blade (the shape of a colichemarde blade features a wide forte, which abruptly tapers to a much narrower form at a point varying between a fifth to a third of the blade length from the hilt.
This is a superb original C18th century English small sword (see pages 270 to 282 of Wither’s book ‘World Swords’ where similar variants of small sword are illustrated). The small sword was the immediate predecessor of the French duelling sword (from which the épée developed. It is thought to have appeared in France and spread quickly across the rest of Europe. The height of the small sword's popularity was between mid 17th and late 18th century. The small sword (also court sword, French: épée de cour or dress sword) is a light one-handed sword designed for thrusting which evolved out of the longer and heavier rapier of the late Renaissance.
**SUPERB**Late 18th Century English Small Sword With Etched Colichemarde (Triangular Section Blade) & Scabbard By Cullen King’s Cutler London.
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