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Posted this also on WAF, FYI.
Bought this piece some time back- 5 or 6 years I belive. It was trashed and barely appeared barely salvageable. Kept bids down to 2 of us. It paid nearly nothing for it due to condition.
I had a poor fitting replacement grip on it in the past- about 1-2 years back bought a Klaas which was garbage, only to harvest the grip. The Klaas cost nothing, and once I harvested the grip, I sold off the rest of the hilt assembly to recoup all my $$.
Finally worked the grip by Dremmel to fit the tang, bacstrap, and P-guard. Had to unpeen then repeen the tang. Anyway, it's finally finished.
Only reason I bought this funky piece is because the strange hilt embellishments. I believe it dates to the Weimar period- possibly a bit ealier. Note the harp motiff on both the backstrap as well as the P-guard. Perhaps the officer belonged to an Army band- I have no idea. The obverse langet is also really funky.
Below is a pre-work and post-work collage.
Just thought i'd share this thing. I had posted it a couple years back when it had the ill-sized, temporary grip. The piece is now "officially" complete.
Tom
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Nice job I'm not familiar with this pattern too.
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Thanks Dow. I'm inclined to think it might have been a custom job. The harp pattern is very odd, and I can only imagine it was worked for an officer who was a musician. Just a guess though.
A couple pics illustrating the harp pattern- enlarged and inverted. Anyone else have any ideas regarding the harp? I'd very much like to hear 'em.
t
Last edited by Swordfish; 11/12/2010 07:31 AM.
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Good work Tom! How about the possibility it was for a singer association? I have seen banners to these groups with a harp.
"You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself." Ricky Nelson
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Thank you felllas.
George- that's an interesting theory and you might be on the money. Based on what was left of the original wood core grip, i am quite certain the piece originally had a sharkskin covered grip. It might very well have dated to the later Imperial era. As you guys know, finding a spare sharksking grip is literally, an impossible task. Locating a suitable celluloid grip was challenging enough, so it had to do.
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What a great job! How did you manage to restore the gilting?
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Thank you.
There is no gilting intact. What you are seeing is the brass hilt base. As part of the process the hilt assembly was exposed to a light amonia/water concotion. Any traces of intact gold colored gilting was long gone when I acquired this piece some years back. It was literally ready for the trash heap- if it wasn't for the odd embellishments, I never would have taken on the project. Finding the right sized and suitable piece was a challenge- in the past, I had an ill sized grip as a filler until I was able to dig up this Klaas grip and hand fit the piece to the saber.
I am quite certain the piece originally had a sharkskin grip. You can see the remains of the grips wood core with it's trashed grip wire was still present when I purchased the piece. It would have been a near impossible task to locate a suitable original period, sharkskin grip. I had to settle for the celluloid which is good enough.
With respect to the hilt embellishments, I think we all agree it's musically related. George suggested ownership by a military officer who was responsible for choir, etc. From what i've been able to find, the harp was used as one of the symbols used by such organizations. I have an email into some contemporary German singing associations to ascertain if they recognize any of the specific designs. I'll publish what I find, if anything at all.
Last edited by Swordfish; 12/01/2010 12:24 PM.
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