May 17, 2022 Early Arms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/17/2022
A Revolutionary War pike of American make, almost certainly Pennsylvania in origin. This American Revolutionary boarding pike or trench spear has an overall length of 74 inches, inclusive of the head and iron shoe. The head is 11 - 1/2" long inclusive of the langets or side-straps, while the blade portion is 6 - 7/8" long and 1 - 1/8" wide, with a diamond profile. It is well-forged, turned and file-finished--equal in quality of workmanship and nearly identical in form to the surviving “PRAHL”-marked examples of the 1000 ordered by Pennsylvania in 1776. The original wooden haft is painted with a salmon-red or “Spanish brown” paint, as are all of the surviving ones on Prahl pikes. The head is attached to it by its socket with integral side-straps, secured with three riveted pins down the side-straps. The conical butt-cap is 2 - 5/8" long and similarly secured with one iron pin. Almost certainly of Pennsylvania origin, it was likely made by one of a number of talented German-American smiths working in close proximity to Prahl in the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia. These arms appear to have been used by Pennsylvania’s military and naval forces, as trench spears among the former and as boarding pikes among the latter. CONDITION: Complete and very good overall; the forged metal with a handsome, dark grey metallic patina and haft with a few scrapes, scars and bruises and some rubbing and scattered loss to the paint. JLK