Hi Jennifer,

Thank you for contacting Mearto with your appraisal inquiry.

This sword was made by Woolley & Deakin, a a Birmingham, England, sword-cutling and military outfitting partnership active during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, especially during the Napoleonic Wars. The firm grew out of the well-known Woolley family of sword makers and is most commonly associated with James Woolley and later business partners including Deakin.

The company produced British military swords, sabers, bayonets, and edged weapons for both government contracts and private-purchase officers’ equipment. Collectors today most often encounter their name on British cavalry sabers — particularly the celebrated 1796 Pattern Light Cavalry saber and other Georgian-era officer swords. Their blades were typically marked along the spine or ricasso with “Woolley & Deakin” and “Birmingham.”

Birmingham at the time was one of Britain’s great arms-manufacturing centers, and Woolley & Deakin operated within a dense network of specialist craftsmen producing blades, hilts, scabbards, and firearms for the expanding British military during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

Historically, the firm is significant because it represents the transition from small family cutlers to larger partnership-based military suppliers capable of fulfilling substantial wartime demand. Surviving swords marked by Woolley & Deakin are valued by collectors for their direct connection to the Napoleonic period and early British military history.

Although Woolley & Deakin is best known for military swords of the Napoleonic era, firms in the Woolley partnership line also produced ceremonial and presentation swords, and likely supplied fraternal-style pieces as the 19th century progressed.

In the late Georgian and early Victorian periods, Birmingham sword cutlers rarely limited themselves strictly to battlefield weapons. Makers such as Woolley & Deakin produced officers’ dress swords, court swords, presentation swords, militia and yeomanry swords, ceremonial civic weapons and fraternal swords, which were often highly decorated, with etched blades, gilt hilts, blued panels, ivory grips, or engraved dedications.

It's a bit hard to tell the precise age of this sword but it's older than your other sword and most like dates to the late 19th Century.

Most Woolley & Deakin swords in this condition sell at auction for between $400 and $600.

Based on the photos and information provided, and subject to examination, this is:

An antique Woolley & Deakin ceremonial sword
made in Birmingham, England, late 19th Century
With knopped faceted pommel, wire-wrapped grip, looping knuckle guard, knopped cross-guard, etched blade, in a black leather scabbard with locket and chape.
(DIMENSIONS)
CONDITION: With tarnishing and wear commensurate with age
PROVENANCE: Inherited
$400-600*
*represents a fair-market value for auction purposes; retail or asking price may vary.

Please let us know if you have additional items to appraise, or questions/concerns, and thank you again for using Mearto.
~ Delia