Introduction

This site contains a full extract from the book Catalogue of European Court Swords and Hunting Swords by Bashford Dean.

Please Take a moment to look at the ads. They are targeted so should be of interest.

With the exception of this short introduction all text is directly from the book. You can navigate to a particular page using the links above or move through the pages in order using the 'next' and 'back' links. Page numbers shown above do not correspond with page numbers in the book. Considering how text in books flows from one page to another and how illustrations are often not on the same page from which they are referred in the text, it seems more reasonable to rearrange the text and illustrations slightly to make things easier on the Web. Book pages are shown in the text in red in case you need to refer to the actual book page. Spelling is interesting in that it is a mix of present US and British spelling, somewhat like modern Canadian spelling but different still. Text was extracted using OCR and this can lead to some strange results. If you see anything that simply doesn't make sense please contact me and I will check it out.

The swords are numbered with the same numbers used in the book. The plates in the book are numbered using Roman Numerals and you can navigate to them directly by clicking on the plate number in the top navigation field. Clicking on the sword image beside the text opens the plate page.

I have a great interest in swords of all types. I hesitate to call myself a collector because of the small size and lack of continuity in my collection. If I like something I buy it and if I can't afford it (sadly all too often) I like to admire it from afar usually in the form of a book. This book was recommended to me but I found that it is scarce, expensive and not available in most libraries. I think the information it contains is important, interesting and should be available to all.

This book was published in 1929 in Paris by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to a dedication in the book just after the front matter "The author, Dr. Bashford Dean died December 6, 1928, while the present work was in the press". Text pages are letterpress and plates are lithographs. The paper is thick and uncoated which may be due to the type of press. Only 900 copies were printed and appear to be hand bound. Unfortunately the paper is not archival and is starting to yellow and become brittle.

This work has not been reprinted and I'm not sure that the collections exist today in a form that would make it possible. Please enjoy this wonderful work.

You can download a PDF of the original publication from the Metropolitan Museum's website. I think the plates are better here but it's useful to see the book as it was originally published.