**A FINE GERMAN SWORD-RAPIER WITH BLACKENED IRON HILT, LATE 16TH CENTURY, PROBABLY SAXON with robust blade of flattened-diamond section (a small portion of the tip ground down), stamped with a pi mark on the reverse of the forte, fitted with blackened iron rain-guard with roped lower border, blackened iron hilt comprising a pair of slightly arched quillons of low-triangular section with reinforced arrow-shaped terminals, outer ring-guard formed en suite with the quillons, large ovoid pommel formed with four faces, and fishskin-covered grip (small losses) bound by four vertical iron bars with a shaped iron collar top and bottom, and brass inventory tag 'A2' 93 cm; 36 1/2 in blade Swords with hilts of related form are preserved in the former Imperial Armoury, Vienna (inv. no. 3849), the former Ducal Arsenal, Brunswick, the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, and the Danish Royal Collection (Rosenborg no. 6). A significant number were ordered for the court of Christian II in Dresden between 1591 and 1611, more than thirty of which were still recorded there in 1923. See Norman 1980, pp. 76-77 and Müller and Kölling 1990, p. 207.