This is one of those stories about finding an amazing thing in a totally unlikely place
like all of us who love ferreting about looking for jewels in piles of old junk – i have a favorite car boot sale. One I’ve been going to for literally decades. The site of a thousand self-inflicted crimes against good taste and common sense. But also a place that occasionally turns up actual treasure.
It was the middle of summer and by 10.30am the bootsale was heaving with people, – buyers, sellers, bored sunburned children, & dogs looking for bits of dropped bacon roll in the grass around the catering vans.
Like all the trade buyers I’d been there since sunrise at 6am, done at least two circuits and was now tired, hungry and wondering where the hell i’d parked my car.
Dawdling my way over to the exit gate i passed a rusty white transit with a youngish guy selling allsorts of tat, from old sinks to camping gear to garage tools laid out on the grass. I stopped to have a nosey about, not expecting to find anything of interest, especially so late in the morning. You have to rememeber that by mid morning at these events every antiques & vintage dealer for miles around has already gone through the entire market (twice) with a fine toothed comb, so i was pretty surprised to spot what looked from a distance like an early long-bladed bayonette, sat on top of a pile of rusty old wire and scewdrivers. `
When i got over there and picked it up i was even more surprised to find that it appeared to actually be an antique sword.
Much shorter than a military sword, with a decent blade and stout bronze and brass hilt and handle with some sort of swirly decoration on the brass.
Now i should say at this point that i know almost nothing about antique weapons, – this is a highly specialized field with loads of obsessive collectors and dealers, – so the chances of spotting something that these fellows have missed is pretty close to zero. The only exception being barefaced luck – which is exactly why i always say look at every single stall if you can, and dont stop looking till you’re literally out of the gate – ( its amazing how often sellers forget to pull stuff out of the van until halfway through the morning…)
After paying the £20 the seller wanted i thought i’d ask him how he’d come to have it and this is what he told me;
It had belonged to one of his mates who had found it wrapped up in a filthy old bit of cloth, hidden in a cave that they had explored together one day while on a camping trip on the South Coast of France. Which is one of those stories that is so ridiculously unlikely as to be almost certainly true.
It wasnt until i had brought the sword home and started doing some reasearch that i discovered such ‘Short Swords’ or hunting swords as they are often known, became a favorite with sailors and pirates of the 17th & 18th century as the shorter blades were far superior for fighting at close quarters on a ships deck.
And it wasnt until id examined it carefully enough to date it to that period that i also suddenly realized the ‘swirly pattern’ (to which i’d hadnt paid much attention) – was in fact the most charming engraving of a Mermaid.
post-script… I’d planned to take this sword to a specialist in antique swords or maritime artifacts where it would have found its very best market – but needs must in a bit of a financial pinch it had ended up entered in the quickest local auction, where they forgot to photograph the mermaid handle for the catalogue and just listed it as an ‘antique hunting sword’ – despite this oversight it still made a few hundred pounds at auction – but in the right place it could have made double that, so here is the moral to this story;
Always check out every stall at the fleamarket
If it looks good and its cheap enough, – buy it ! (even if you don’t really know what it is…)
Don’t sell stuff you really love in a mad rush just because you are broke
And always check the auction’s descriptions when they are selling objects on your behalf, -( they are not nearly as invested in getting it right as you are…)