May 17, 2022 Early Arms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/17/2022
This rudimentary, yet efficient, design for a cutlass is seemingly a standard pattern by an unidentified American cutler. Near-identical examples are known in American museum and private collections, most with New England provenance or origin. All feature iron hilts that have oval disc-shaped crossguards of sheet iron, riveted to a D-shaped knuckle bow of forged iron; at its other end, the knuckle-bow is hammered out into a small, disk-shaped, convex pommel cap where it is attached to the grip or handle by putting the tang of the blade through a hole drilled in its center, and peening the tang over. This 33" cutlass has a wooden grip with ringed channels turned or carved into it and the entire guard is japanned black (other examples are painted with white lead or red oxide). Its curved blade with single, narrow fuller is 27 - 5/8" and 1 - 1/8" wide at ricasso and bears the running wolf or fox mark, crosses or X’s, and a ‘1745’ date. This style of blade is of Solingen origin and was heavily imported into the American colonies and states during the second half of the 18th century; nearly all cutlasses examined with this style of hilt also share the same blade form. CONDITION: There is light pitting and some surface oxidation to the hilt where the japanning has worn off, while the blade appears to have been recently cleaned. JLK