Description
PRUSSIA – SWORD – PRESENTATION – ARTILLERY – LIONSHEAD
This is a very high quality presentation sword. It was a gift from one officer who served in 1. Posensches Feld-Artillerie-Regiment Nr 20 to another. {This was a Prussian regiment that was raised in 1872 right after the end of the 1870/1871 Franco-Prussian War. The regiment was established at a time when the German Army was building up. Approximately twelve artillery regiments were formed in 1872}. This is a beautiful lionshead sword that has excellent gilding on the pommel and the lionshead. The sword has a superbly conditioned grip covered in sharkskin and is triple wire-wrapped. I’ll return to the lionshead at the end of the description, as it has an interesting feature I would like to share with you. As we pull the blade from the scabbard we can see it is slightly curved. The overall length of the sword is 40.” The length of the blade is 34.”.
The blade is beautifully engraved. It has a black paneled design with gilt trim. The one side shows the presentation of the sword to a “Günther,” who served in this regiment during the late 19th Century. He returned to service in the same regiment then served until the end of the war. The other side of the blade carries forward the same black/blue design in a military and floral manner. The scabbard is a black design with two rings. The scabbard’s ring area is decorative and gilt-colored for contrast. The final detail (and what I find most striking) is that the lion’s eyes are blue! Of course, red and green eyes are commonly seen. I have even been told of some white and yellow examples, but this is the first time that I have seen blue.
This is a very striking sword and quite attractive. The blade of the sword has been uncleaned for decades. While I am not overly keen on cleaning swords, they are, in my opinion, one of the few items that could be cleaned with an excellent product called Simichrome©. It is a polish that first came to my attention in the 1960’s for polishing expensive automobile wheels without scratching them. This is, of course, VERY important if cleaning is to be done.
