This blade has a tiny bit of a story with it: Somewhere around 1910-1915 a russian soldier of now forever forgotten characteristics and rank was travelling in a military train through Finland (which was at that time part of the Russian empire).
My great-grandfather who was a conductor serving under the tsar in the empiric railways of Finland was known to be an easy-going and funny chap but also inquisitive.
He spoke fluent russian like all government officials, finnish or not, back then and got to a game or a gamble of some sort with some of the soldiers, though my father told that for a long time he was orthodox that he was just given a gift of goodwill, either way the soldier had from somewhere produced a bundle which revealed the prize which was a quite nice piece of weaponry for the stakes of the game i believe.
The rest of the blade's journey is even more boring without any great battles just hanging from a wall and another and another until it recently found its way to my posession. I hope someone could share more light on the origins of this sabre, I googled my way through numerous pictures of similar looking swords and i noticed that almost all of them seemed a more sturdy type of shape and fabrication almost like mine is some sort of ceremonial sword or a replica even? Well that sounds a bit weird ? a 100 year old replica?
The reason for this speculation is that in Helsinki, where I live in, a supposed adept in measuring the authenticity and value of old things in general discarded the blade with mutterings about some cheap gift shop crap after a hasty examination, he told that the handle seemed to be of plastic! I couldnt believe this back then and now that i have tinkered with the handle a bit i found that he was wrong after all, the painted wood is just of a confusingly plastic texture.
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