Hand-Forged Swiss Sabre, Side Ring Guard

A Swiss sabre is a single-edged sword of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries on a Swiss or south German compound hilt — a cross with rings, sometimes knuckle bows, and a grip long enough for one hand or two. They were carried by Swiss soldiers and the mercenaries who served across half of Europe, and they sit where the longsword hilt starts growing the bars that become the basket.

This piece has the hilt: cross with knobbed terminals, a full side ring, a disc pommel, a 5.5 inch grip. What it lacks is the curve. The type as museums define it has a slightly curved blade, and this one is straight. Worth saying in the first answer rather than the last; FAQ 2 deals with it properly.

Because that is how this one was forged, and we would rather tell you than hope you do not notice. Every scholarly description of the type specifies a slightly curved blade. Ours is straight, the back running unbroken until it falls away in an angled clip to the point. In every other respect it belongs to the family.

If you want the curve, we will forge it at no extra cost. Say so in the order note: a gentle sweep of an inch or so over 29 inches is what most surviving examples show, and what we will build if you leave the amount to us. The curved blade makes this a far more defensible piece for a reenactor or a collector who cares about type.

It covers the hole. A plain cross protects your hand only while the hand stays behind it. Put a finger over the quillon for point control, as fencers of this period did constantly, and that finger sits outside the guard, exposed to anything sliding down your opponent's blade. The side ring is a loop standing off the cross that closes that opening.

It is the first step in a long development. Through the sixteenth century smiths kept adding bars to the same problem: one ring becomes two, then rings plus a knuckle bow, then a swept hilt, then a basket. A side-ring hilt is that argument caught early.

No, and almost every retailer selling one gets this wrong. Schweizersäbel is a modern museum term, coined in 1914 by Eduard Achilles Gessler, curator at the Swiss National Museum, in a study of how the type developed. A useful label, and we use it, but a scholar's word applied four centuries on.

The contemporary word was Schnepf, or Schnaepf — snipe — apparently because the long, slightly hooked blade resembled the bird's beak. Worth knowing for a second reason: much trade copy confuses Schweizersäbel with Schweizerdegen, which is a different weapon entirely, the short Swiss sword or sword-dagger. You will find that error repeated across several well-known sword retailers. They are not the same thing.

Look at the cross-section of the bars, not their shape. This is the cleanest single test and it works on any photograph. Swiss-style hilts have guard bars of circular or diamond section — round or lozenge at a cut end. German hilts of the same period tend to a flattened ribbon section, wider than it is thick.

The two traditions produced very similar hilts, and most surviving examples are German, which is why the distinction vanishes from sales copy. It is also a fair test to apply to us: the bars on this hilt are of round section with knobbed, fluted terminals, and you can check that in the photographs rather than take our word for it.

Rosewood jointed to whitewood — the rosewood is the dark, dense section at the guard end, the whitewood the pale section running up to the pommel. Worth knowing what the second word means: whitewood is a timber-trade term, not a species. It covers a range of pale, light, relatively soft woods, and is a materially different thing from rosewood in hardness and density.

That gives a handsome two-tone grip and one thing to watch. Two timbers of different density meeting at a joint move at slightly different rates as humidity changes, and the softer section marks and wears faster. None of that matters on a sword that hangs on a wall. On one you mean to handle hard, ask for rosewood throughout, or leather over timber — both free. It is 5.5 inches either way, hand-and-a-half and short for the type; we will build it longer for nothing.

Honestly? It is heavier, and here is the arithmetic rather than an adjective. This sword is 1,220 grams with a 29 inch blade, 37 inches overall. The Metropolitan Museum holds a Swiss sabre that weighs about 1,191 grams with a 36.25 inch blade and 42.9 inches overall. Almost the same mass, over seven more inches of blade.

Per inch of blade we are at 42 grams against the original's 33, about 28 per cent heavier for the same length of steel. Stouter and more forgiving, less lively in the hand. If you want period mass, ask for more pronounced distal taper. We will do it, and tell you what it costs in durability.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, which we use across the whole range. The blade is forged to shape, quenched, and then tempered back by hand as a separate operation afterwards. Those are two distinct processes and the second one is what matters: quenching alone leaves a blade hard and brittle, and tempering trades a little of that hardness for the toughness that lets a 29 inch blade take a hard stop without cracking.

5160 is not stainless and is not meant to be. It rusts if left damp, and in exchange takes and keeps an edge far better than any stainless we could sensibly forge. We do not make pattern-welded or Damascus blades at all, by choice.

The main edge ships sharpened unless you tell us otherwise. The clipped back — the angled run from spine to point — is left blunt as standard. On period single-edged swords a sharpened false edge there is common but not universal, and it has consequences: it makes the point cut on the back stroke, and in some jurisdictions a second sharpened edge changes how the whole sword is classified regardless of how short it is.

So we make it a choice. Ask for the false edge sharpened, or for the whole sword unsharpened for display or an awkward import. A stage combat build — rebated edge, rounded tip — is available on the same terms. None of it costs extra.

We do not publish a single point-of-balance figure, because hand-forged blades vary and a number two inches out is worse than none. What we can tell you is the shape of it: a 29 inch single-edged blade of this section, with a disc pommel and a side ring behind it, balances a few inches ahead of the cross, which is where a cutting sword of this period belongs.

If the figure matters, ask before dispatch and we will measure the actual sword we are sending you, from the cross, and send the number. Our sword balance guide explains what point of balance and centre of percussion mean and why the measurement is worth asking any seller for.

All three are single-edged European swords and they are constantly confused, including by people selling them. The distinction that matters is hilt construction, not blade shape. A falchion has a conventional sword hilt: a tang running through to a fitted pommel. A messer is built like a knife — a flat slab tang with riveted scales, usually with a Nagel, a stud projecting from the cross to shield the hand.

This sword is built the first way, with a proper pommel, so it is not a messer whatever the blade looks like. Nor is it a falchion, because a falchion broadens toward the point where this one keeps an even width and clips off. We forge all three, so if you want one of the others, ask.

Fittings, yes. The most authentic option for a late sixteenth century Swiss sabre is a lion's head pommel, which is what the specialised hilt forms of that period carry, and we will forge one instead of the disc. Longer grip, curved blade, second ring, knuckle bow, blackened or silvered furniture — all available, none charged extra.

Arsenal marks, no. We do not stamp reproduction arsenal, inspection or armoury marks on new blades, and we will decline if you ask. A marked blade eventually leaves the person who commissioned it, and at that point a stamp ordered as decoration is indistinguishable from one meant to deceive. Maker's marks, initials, dedications and dates are all fine.