Beschreibung:

A Rare English Dish-Hilt Rapier, Circa 1640-55, with slender blade of oval section changing to flattened hexagonal section and stamped “A.N.D.R.E.A F.E.R.A.R.A” on both sides within the narrow fuller at the forte (blade cleaned over pitting, inscription partly illegible), iron hilt chiselled in low relief with mulberry ornament, including embossed chiselled dish-guard, its edge undulating about a symmetrical arrangement of segments of gathered mulberries alternating with segments of spiralling mulberry tendrils, a pair of short quillons with chiselled flattened terminals, knuckle-guard and a pair of ring-guards all of incised flattened bars interrupted by disc-like mulberry mouldings and linked by a pair of scrolling diagonals at their front, the pommel en suite and rising to a prominent button, and the grip retaining its original spiral binding of boldly patterned brass wire and brass “Turk’s heads”, 105cm blade, 124cm overall See A.V.B. Norman, The Rapier and Small-Sword 1460-1820, London 1980, hilt 96, pp. 170-171.