Photograph courtesy Wendy M. Welsh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Posted on 01/17/2011 3:51:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Could this partly gilded hilt have held Blackbeard's sword? There's no way to know for sure, though it was found amid the North Carolina wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of the infamous 18th-century pirate... After running aground on a sandbar in 1718 near the town of Beaufort, the ship was abandoned but likely remained intact and partly above water for as long as a year before collapsing and disintegrating... The newfound hilt may have been left behind because it was unwanted, or it may have been inaccessible, according to Moore's colleague Wendy Welsh, a conservator on the project. Blackbeard's brief career as a pirate lasted only about two years, but during that time he became one of history's most feared outlaws.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Photograph courtesy Wendy M. Welsh, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
Looks to me like the hilt of a display sword rather than a fighting sword.
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NC history ping
Cool...
Sword ping!
Why do you say that?
Agree, or a carving knife perhaps. Doesn’t look like anything that a self-respecting pirate would strap on as his primary sword. But then, Nat Geo has to sell magazines and TV shows.
AaRrgh!
Uhh, maybe it was left behind because the BLADE WAS BROKEN?
A guy who braided his beard in pigtails, lit fuses in his hair, and wore 3 pistols on his chest alone - would wear a sword with a gilded hilt.
Out of all the flags of pirates who plied the coast of NC in the 18th century, I think Edward England’s is the nicest, it’s the classic skull and crossbones.
It appears to have had a chain handguard loop. It may have attached at that little hole on the hilt, and connected to another loop on the pommel. This was done on both naval cutlasses and cavalry sabers of the period as an alternative to the basket or full handguard hilt.
ARRrrrr... looks like a pig sticker handle to me 
Lots of primary-weapon swords and cutlasses were dressed up with gold and fancy-work. Good quality weapons were expensive anyway, and a symbol of wealth and power. It’s like saying that today noboby would spend 100K on a car that was their daily driver. I would beg to differ.
lol.
Might end up being a left behind prop from an old pirate movie or something. lol.
That flag makes me wonder about the origins of the three dots tatoo.
Looks like something I can’t think of...
Looks like the hilt of a German-style hunting sword, which would be carried perhaps by boar hunters.
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