Sorry to bother! Couldn't find an answer elsewhere, but my google-fu is admittedly very weak.
Researching traditional European Quillon dagger designs and about half the blades I'm seeing in the Wallace collection have a significant number of holes in the blade. Museum numbers A798, A796, A797, A785 (my favorite), A784, A780, A776, and A772 are the ones I have pulled up right now, but there are more.
Lots of fullers, lots of holes.Â
This is incredibly interesting to me because I can't think of a good reason to lighten the blade that much. In my mind it'd almost make it feel like holding a hammer by the head and trying to swing it. The only other time I can recall seeing pierced blades like this was for decorative purposes with certain types of horimonos, but I don't see the aesthetic appeal for that in these pieces so I really feel like I'm missing something. Looking for someone to shed some light on my ignorance here.
It's also interesting because it's not something I'm seeing on the presentation blades of master smiths. Most of the ones I'm seeing don't even have a single fuller, much less the several some of these historical pieces have. Is it just a design choice to highlight the damascus pattern more?
So to sum up my questions are:
1) Why were these holes there historically?
2) Why aren't they prevalent on modern presentation blades (based on the photos I've found so far, at least)?
Thank you for your time and consideration!
~Bobby Best
not all of the quillion daggers have this that I have seen many are closer to what is common now. Most of those with that crazy cross section that I have seen are labeled as poniards and also have a funny shaped point. like stretched out clay. Gregg Cimms and I got the chance to document a few of these and the curator said commonly thought that those were to hold poison soaked thread, but also said he had seen no evidence for that and that is was most likely not true.
having held a few I was impressed by how light stiff and strong they seemed.
MP
|quoted:
Lots of fullers, lots of holes.Â
This is incredibly interesting to me because I can't think of a good reason to lighten the blade that much. In my mind it'd almost make it feel like holding a hammer by the head and trying to swing it. The only other time I can recall seeing pierced blades like this was for decorative purposes with certain types of horimonos, but I don't see the aesthetic appeal for that in these pieces so I really feel like I'm missing something. Looking for someone to shed some light on my ignorance here.
~Bobby Best
Something else to consider is that the fuller is not solely for the purpose of lightening the blade. As Matthew points out, these are very stiff and strong blades. Much of that (as far as I know anyway) is because of the fullers. The cross section created by a fuller down the length of a blade is akin to that of a I-Beam. It's primary purpose is to increase tensile strength.
Joshua States
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“So I'm lightin' out for the territory, ahead of the scared and the weak and the mean spirited, because Aunt Sally is fixin’ to adopt me and civilize me, and I can't stand it. I've been there before.â€
|quoted:
Something else to consider is that the fuller is not solely for the purpose of lightening the blade. As Matthew points out, these are very stiff and strong blades. Much of that (as far as I know anyway) is because of the fullers. The cross section created by a fuller down the length of a blade is akin to that of a I-Beam. It's primary purpose is to increase tensile strength.
more not to lose weight with out losing stiffness , a solid cross section will have much the same stiffness.
The holes in the fuller/blade youbare talking about are more a status symbol. These daggers are more pieces of art, than a blade. They were showing that the person carrying the blade is a rich one, since he can afford such a fine and expensive piece. The poison thing is a nonsense, because almost all the holes are at the base of the blade, and it will need a strong, deep penetrating hit to insert (?) the poison in the opponent's body. If I want to poison someone this way, I would put the poison on the very tip of the blade, so that even a scratch will be enough to do the job.
P. S. Funny fact: I saw some blades with holes in the fuller. One of them was with a pattern: hole, line, hole, hole or something like that. It took me some time to realize that the Morse code was invented a few hundred years afterbthe blade was made, but this was after I tried to read the code.
I am not lazy, I am on energy saving mode!
