Any ideas about the origin/general history of this saber?

April 24, 2017 9:28 AM

Can you shed some light on this P.D. Lunescchloss saber with a straight blade, bronze guard, and steel scabbard? Photos here (dropbox).

Please excuse all misused terms!

The saber is fairly plain, especially the guard, which has no decorative motifs. (If it's a reproduction, it's at least 50 years old, in and of itself, as it has a known history at least that long.) It's roughly a meter long when the saber is in the scabbard.

The saber and scabbard have the following markings:

Scabbard

• "A" : outside on the flat of one end
• "♛100 ": inside throat

Guard

• "L" : Serif, in relief, inside punched circle

Blade

• "P.D.L" : Inside toothed oval on forte of blade
• "SOLINGEN" : Beneath oval
• "♛90" : On top of blade
• "♛" : Below the preceding, just above the hilt, cannot be sure if it's hiding another number below where it can be seen

Using the internets, the closest I can find are some Great War German calvary sabers, though it's clear PDL were in the business of selling as many blades to whomever they could. The lack of ornamentation (to me) points away from ceremonial or officer use, but the condition is such that I doubt if it's period it saw a battlefield. The straight blade seems to point away from an earlier period, where blades mostly seem curved and scabbards nearly always have two mounting points.

Back story is that my ex's father probably got it from his uncle, who served in WW2 and, er, "liberated" a fair number of weapons, though I doubt this was one of those. My ex left it behind, and if it's of any value, I should probably send her some money for it, as she'd not interested in having it back.

At the moment, I'm mostly interested in what it's likely to be, who would have issued it, etc. (I do not expect it's hugely valuable or that it would be the star of an Antiques Roadshow!)

posted by maxwelton to Grab Bag (2 answers total)

Someone at the Ethnographic Arms and Armour site may be able to help. They have a discussion forum where people post photos and ask for identification help (there is a European Armory section).
posted by gudrun at 10:21 AM on April 24, 2017

If you can stomach Reddit, you could ask here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Militariacollecting/

If that doesn't pan out, I am on a mailing list of WWII historians/veterans/enthusiasts/writers who might know.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:26 AM on April 25, 2017