This elegant and detailed rapier is based on the Wallace Collection's A569 rapier, with a slender blade and sweeping diagonal guard. The quillons are customised to the client's specifications, with flat-sectioned vertical S-curves. It handles nimbly, with a hollow pommel helping the slender fencing-safe blade to move more like an original. The overall balance covers a versatile middle ground, allowing for dominant actions and swift changes. The cherry on top is the hours of painstaking hand-engraving that Chris spent replicating the original sword's pattern of diamonds and dots. Having viewed the original sword at the Wallace Collection, we noted the multi-layered texture to the engraving, achieved by carving, blackening, and then carving additional detail on top. The name is a reference to this diamond-strewn detailing. Please see our pricing structure for an idea of what a similar sword would cost.
∴ Specs ∴
Total length: 121cm
Blade length: 105.5cm
Blade width: 2.2cm at the shoulder
Blade stock: 6mm
Quillon span: 23cm
Grip length: 7.5cm
Grip and pommel: 13cm
Grip to guard: 5.5cm
Point of balance: 13cm from the cross
Weight: 1060g
Right-handed
2mm blunt edges
Swollen tip
Fencing flex
∴ Notes ∴
The hand-forged and heat-treated guard basket is blackened to a matte finish. The furniture is hand-carved with chisel and burin, giving a pronounced diamond pattern that is selectively blackened. The guard features a closed port, vertical S-shaped quillons and a knucklebow. The spherical pommel is hand carved into segments. The oak grip is wrapped in twisted steel wire with Turk's head knots to top and bottom.
∴ Gallery ∴
∴ A Glittering Guard ∴
It is a perfectly starry night, of the sort where the longer you look the more diamonds blossom against the darkness of your peripheral vision. You could stare into the sky’s stillness for hours, but for the fact that it is suddenly fractured by a burst of brilliant gold.
Gasps and nervous laughter ring around the garden as the guests turn their attention to the heavens. Another bejeweled explosion, and the firework display is begun, with stars of blue, red and green dancing to join their siblings in the sky.
You lift your glass of sweet madeira to toast the unexpected splendour. Your host has outdone himself tonight.
Your companion cannot help but laugh at your whimsical gesture, and you turn with a smile to take her in. She is stunning, still swathed in the dark silks of mourning, yet the sprays of small diamonds at her throat and ears catch the light like the stars themselves.
You are about to tell her as much, when a familiar and none-too-welcome face leers over her shoulder.
Your face falls.
“Chauncey,” you intone, permitting a curt bob of your head.
The interloper looks you up and down as he might do horse or hunting hound.
“Well if it’s not the duellist that would be Duke,” he laughs. “Come now my lady, surely you can do better than this.”
“Chauncey, don’t,” your companion pronounces, her voice low and dangerous.
“I mean no offence,” he chuckles, “It’s just that I can’t help but wonder what your dear late father would think if he knew you’d turned down my fortunes for this threadbare fop?”
With a sudden rush of red madeira your hand is at your hip. With a snarl you draw your rapier, and its swirling grip is the black of the sky, bespangled with a thousand diamonds.