Original 1856 Pattern Rifle Regiments Musicians Sword & Scabbard

This is the less common pattern of bandsman’s sword with cast iron grips & cross guard and steel mounted leather scabbard as issued to rifle regiments bandsmen, infantry regiments had identical swords but with all brass fittings. The sword grips are in excellent condition and show the VR cypher for Queen Victoria to each side, the edge of the grip has stamped markings DL or DI there may be more markings under the paintwork as this would have originally have had a black finish but for some reason has been over painted in silver long ago, some of the black can be seen in places where the old silver has worn or flaked off, again if stripped down more markings may be hidden under the silver?. The blade is mostly excellent double edged and un-sharpened, it is its original length and measures 19 inches from base of cross guard to tip of blade, (total length including grips 24 ½ inches). It shows 2 ancient rust pitting patches towards the end of the blade one to each side of the blade, these are not bad and do not affect the blade, the rest is excellent with a few minor surface rust spots and would benefit from a good clean and polish, we can see no markings to the blade. The metal mounted leather scabbard is the original to the sword and has again had the metal fittings painted silver long ago but all parts look good, the leather is good and strong but could do with a good polish or some leather feed, it has shrunk very slightly with age so when sliding the sword in the tip of the blade touches the bottom of the scabbard and does not push totally in leaving a small gap of approx  4 mm between the scabbard mouthpiece & sword cross guard. A nice original Victorian bandsman’s sword in need of a little tlc.

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