Civil war medical service sword

jekct1212

Corporal
Joined
Dec 31, 2015
Location
Thomasville Georgia
possibly gonna buy a sword wanted y'all to check it out first, what do y'all think?
 

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Well, it's certainly NOT what you said it was in the title of this thread! This is a decent example of a very ordinary militia sword, likely made for a first sergeant or other NCO. It *might* have been a junior officer's since there was very little regulation to the volunteers or militia. This in no way resembles the very specific pattern called for in the regulations for Officers of the Medical Staff. Here's an example in my collection of another of these militia swords alongside U. S. regulation NCO and musician's swords by Ames Mfg. Co. to show the similarities:

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The one you picture is a later postwar example, obvious by the scabbard which is a near-duplicate of those used on the Sword for All Officers made regulation in 1872.
 
We have an ongoing discussion on militia swords I had initially started just for Mexican War era examples but it has grown to encompass all.
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?104816-Early-Ames-And-Other-s-Militia-NCO-Patterns

Here are some of my older examples. The narrower reeded examples from Horstmann, all the others from Ames. Two are with nco length and musician length spadroon blades. The blades lengthened as time went on. The norm for the 1850s was the 25" blades. As they grew longer after the war, they also got skinnier.

Cheers

GC

The silver one is slilver wash on brass, not "German silver"
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The last short one I adopted had a partial scabbard.
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It is definitely a later sword. You are offering only the one picture but if the scabbard is undented, don't start at much more than $100. This is a later military association type and the "fancy" scabbard vs velum or leather a plus. If the blade is etched, a further plus.

FWIW, A pre ACW Ames example with complete etching and scabbard went for $145, just the other day. Personally, I wouldn't be interested in the sword shown here at all but realistically, wholesale value about $50.

Cheers

GC
 
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