Genuine antique original & complete QUITE RARE (in any condition at all) British Pattern 1804 Naval Cutlass

Only the THIRD that I have ever listed here on TM in over twenty years

NO scabbard

In 1804 the Royal Navy standardized the naval cutlass pattern & ordered 10,000 of the swords on May 30 of that year

While that may seem like a large number of cutlasses, but the standard issue for ships of the line was 350 cutlasses for 1st & 2nd rate vessels & 280 cutlasses for 3rd rates

A first rate “Ship of the Line” in the British Navy circa 1800 was armed with 100+ guns, had 3 gun decks (not counting the exposed upper deck, quarter deck & forecastle) & was crewed by 850 to 875 sailors

That meant 350 cutlasses provided 1 cutlass for approximately every 2 “ men

A 2nd rate ship of the line was also a 3-decker with at least 90 guns, crewed by 700-750 men, so the ratio of cutlasses to men was approximately 1:2

A 3rd rate ship had 64-80 guns, was crewed by 500-650 men, & with 280 cutlasses on board, had a sailor to cutlass ratio of between 1:1.8 & 1:2.3

Based upon these figures, the Royal Navy was trying to provide cutlasses for approximately every 2-3 sailors, so an order of 10,000 would supply between 20,000 & 30,000 seamen, only a fraction of the overall size of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars

This newly formalized cutlass pattern had a wide, heavy blade without fuller that between 27 7/8 & 29" in length, with most sources giving a nominal length of 28" as standard

The tang of the blade passed through a cast iron grip that was grooved in both horizontally & vertically to provide a firm grip when wet

The resulting grip looked rather like a US Army WW2 “Pineapple” hand grenade

The guard was sheet iron, in Hollier’s double-disc form, with a round iron front guard & a similarly shaped knuckle guard below

The top of the sheet iron front guard was rolled forward in a sort of rudimentary quillon

The tang of the blade was peened to the rear of the pommel with no cap