Revolutionary War Small Sword & Belt, ca. 1740
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GUEST:
I brought in a sword that's been in my family since the Revolutionary War. It's been in our possession the whole time, and I don't really know too much about it, except that I know that it was at the retreat of the British from Concord and Lexington, and used at Bunker Hill as well.
APPRAISER:
And there's a name associated with it. This sword was owned by Colonel Winslow, and was given to Captain Farwell of Dunstable, Massachusetts.
GUEST:
Oh, right.
APPRAISER:
But research has shown that it's actually from Groton, Massachusetts.
GUEST:
Oh really?
APPRAISER:
The next town over.
GUEST:
Really?
APPRAISER:
Yes. So what we have here is what's called a small sword. So we've got a silver hilt in a steel blade. The counterguard is broken off here, but the proof marks that would've proven the country of origin would have been on that guard.
GUEST:
Oh, I see.
APPRAISER:
Probably English manufactured. Probably in the 1740s. If it was used at the Battle of Louisbourg, which is now Cape Breton Island, it would have been 1745, used at that time. So it's manufactured probably in England, a little earlier than that. However, with the loss of the counterguard and the touch marks, we can't say for sure. I've been studying the material culture related to April 19, 1775 for about 40 years. And this type of small sword is what we see in every identified case. So the belt you have here looks like it's a linen, possibly all linen or linen-wool mix. With a clasp, brass clasp here. It's missing a few pieces that the sword might have hung from. But it's still, considering the date and time that it's been around, it's still in pretty good condition.
GUEST:
Yeah, it's pretty old.
APPRAISER:
So Captain Farwell... actually his first name was Henry Farwell. There's some great information on him. He was there on the British retreat. He was also wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The ball went through his body and lodged in his spine, and had to be removed. He was in Colonel William Prescott's regiment. Colonel William Prescott, as you may know, was at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and was in command of a lot of the troops there. So it's a very interesting piece. Have you ever had it appraised before?
GUEST:
I've never had it appraised.
APPRAISER:
Okay, normally a sword in this condition would be in the $800 to $1,000 range.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
With the connections you have to Captain Henry Farwell, the April 19 history, the Bunker Hill history, I would say the combination of the small sword and the belt, at auction, would be $2,000 to $3,000.
GUEST:
Interesting.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. And it could... could do higher than that. There's a lot of collectors of April 19 and Bunker Hill that, you get two people that want it, it could go even higher than that.
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