Original Item: Only One Available. This is what we call a sleeper. It features a steel single bow hilt with ray skin grip together with a matched steel mounted black leather scabbard. All of it covered in 150 years worth of dirt and age.
However, once you expose the blade it is like it was made yesterday! Beautifully engraved at the with marker details that reads:
PARKER
FIELD & SONS
233 HOLBORN
LONDON
On the other side in an elaborately engraved foliage panel reads: N.C.P. 1868. Sword measures 33″ overall with a 28 sparkling blade and comes with a press button scabbard lock to secure the sword into the scabbard.
This is a classic police sword made by the principal police contractor of the Victorian era. The inscription N.C.P. stands for the individual Police Force that ordered this weapon for their Officers. We do not know which authority ordered this weapon in 1868 however it has been suggested that it was for the NORTH CORNWALL POLICE which during this period were greatly involved with smuggling in England’s West Country. Remember the film “Jamaica Inn” which took place around 1820 but the problem still existed late into Queen Victoria’s reign.
Originally acquired from a old “police bobby collection” just received from England this “sleeper” has been left untouched for well over a century.