I offer for sale a top quality, George III era, English hunting sword, bearing the Royal Coat of Arms for 1801 - 1816 and heavily blued and gilded to the blade. The blade is straight, single-edged, unfullered and tapering to a length of 58 cm, having a 20cm false-edge running to the blade point. A swirling motif is seen on the flat back edge of the blade at the ricasso, which is synonymous with Solingen blade manufacture. No maker's mark is present.
Quite unusually, the "GR III" monogram is engraved deeply within the blued section of the blade (this is a feature not often seen usually just the "GR") and duly decorated with gilding. On the other side the Royal Coat of Arms for 1801 to 1816 is finely engraved and gilded. The blade bears additional gilded decoration and stands of arms.
The hilt consists of gilt brass fittings, the gilding of which is in excellent overall condition. A cylindrical quillon block holds a set of recurved "S" quillons of hexagonal cross-section, terminating in two flattened knops. In front of the quillon block there is a gilt brass Scallop shell guard. Behind the block lies a gilded ferrel and an antler grip bound with copper wire. A gilded cushion pommel with pronounced tang button completes the hilt. There is a little movement to the wire binding as is to be expected but, the blade and hilt are a completely firm fit to each other.
The sword is housed in it's original, matching leather scabbard (which has a period repair towards the tip) and is fitted with gilt brass throat (somewhat loose), mid-suspension collar (firm) and chape (firm). The scabbard leather is in very good condition overall, except for the repaired region, which is somewhat delicate and flexible. However, all of the back scabbard stitching is intact.
The sword also has it's original, matching by-knife, having antler grip scales to a full tang, and having a rounded tip. There is a tiny, indistinct maker's mark to the by-knife blade, which I cannot identify. The overall length of the sword in the scabbard is 74cm.
Altogether, an extremely rare example of a top-quality, George III era, English hunting sword with a nice blued and gilded blade, complete with it's matching and original leather scabbard and by-knife. They don't come much better than this for an English hunting sword that could be anywhere between 203 to 218 years old.