Removing sword from scabbard

Dee Stubbs-Lee <dee.stubbs-lee<-a t->nbm-mnb< . >ca> writes

>One of our museum's volunteers is a sword collector and has asked my
>advice on freeing a sword he recently purchased that is stuck within
>its scabbard.  ...
>...
>...  There is a dent in the brass
>tip, so that may be the point where it is seized.  Apart from the
>usual old brass polish residues in the recessed areas, a bit of
>abrasion on the leather and the corrosion on the blade, the sword
>and scabbard are in good condition.
>
>Does anyone have advice for what we might try in order to free the
>blade from the scabbard?

May I suggest you the following: One of the possibilities that you
may be facing is the blade was intentionally trapped by the owner,
to prevent theft of the owner.

This is a known trick and you must first twist and do a proper
maneuver of the scabbard against the blade in order to free both.

In your case, some decay may have worsened the situation, but it
sounds like you are not facing a highly decayed sword, so you should
be able to track for the correct movement to apply in order to do
the correct releasing maneuver.  By no means is this easy.

David Cottier-Angeli
Associated Member of the Swiss Chamber of Technical and Scientific
    Forensic Experts
CottierMetal
Geneva


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 27:44
                   Distributed: Sunday, May 11, 2014
                       Message Id: cdl-27-44-001
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