December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
Officer's quality swordbelt or shoulder carriage for saber with 2 3/8 inch-wide belt made of two layers of leather, brown calf covered with red morocco leather and stitched together along both edges. A frame buckle of silver bearing 2 tines on its center bar at the end of the short branch allows it to buckle to the long branch, which has a 3/8 inch-wide, silver slide and a shield-shaped silver tip 2 5/8 inches long by 2 3/8 inches wide. A script "BLD" cipher is engraved on the center of the tip, almost certainly a unit ID (Baltimore Light Dragoons? Boston Light Dragoons?), while a script "A" is engraved on the face of the slide, perhaps the Troop letter or an owner's initial. The belt tip is illustrated and discussed in O'Donnell & Campbell (2000), p. 16. PROVENANCE: Don Troiani Collection until 2023, whence acquired. CONDITION: Overall very good, the red morocco has faded slightly and the seam joining the frog to the long branch of the belt on the underside was originally were butt-joined or stoated and round-closed, but most of the threads have broken.