German Colonial Sword

[SARGE]

Gents,

I would like to show an interesting Imperial German Colonial Officer Sword. This is the "old style" Colonial sword made in the style of a Prussian Infantry Officer Degen (IOD). The so-called old model is characterized by having the Imperial eagle on the guard face to its left while the new style had the eagle facing to its right. The old style had the normally encountered Wilhelm II monogram on the obverse grip while the new style had a slightly different Imperial monogram. The final difference was that the old style sword had an Imperial crown on the top of the pommel while the new style sword had a plain pommel. 

 

This is confusing because of the inclusion or absence of the crown on the pommel and the way the eagle in the guard is looking left or right.  The two types of grip monogram also confuse the issue.  Interpretations vary and Charles Woolley, "Uniforms of the German Colonial Troops 1884-1918" also has an interpretation backed up with period uniform plates.  He shows the Officer sword with a crown on the pommel in a uniform plate on p.9 and an NCO sword without the pommel crown on p.11.  These Officer-NCO different pommels seem to be repeated in various other period uniform plates in his book.  

This particular Colonial sword was manufactured by Alexander Coppel and has the ACS/Scales marking on the reverse ricasso of the plain straight IOD style blade. The hilt is un-plated brass with considerable detail to the eagle and the leather finger loop is black and red to match the Portepee colors.  The felt blade buffer is red. The undamaged black grip is celluloid over wood with the "old style" monogram. The crown has been removed from the pommel on this particular sword and one wonders if it was lost or if it was removed to bring it into line with the new regulation sword that supposedly did not have a crown?  The Imperial style pommel crown was a separate device that screwed into the top of the pommel and the threads are undamaged and remain in the pommel so the crown was in place at some point in time during the period of use.  

 

Officer or NCO with Portepee Colonial sword?

 

 

[Tony v]

SARGE

 

This is one wonderful sword ! Just beautiful, thank you for another great lesson.

 

Tony

[Preppy Picker]

Very nice piece. How big was the crown pommel?

[SARGE]

17 hours ago, Preppy Picker said:

Very nice piece. How big was the crown pommel?

 

Not that big.  About 1/2 the size of the end of the pommel piece with the screw hole.