76 - Collins & Co. sword-form machete, pattern 326, horn grip and leather scabbard, 19th/20th century

Collins & Co. sword-form machete, pattern 326, horn grip and leather scabbard, 19th/20th century Steel, horn, white metal, leather. Sword-form machete by Collins & Co., Hartford, with long, slightly curved, single-edged steel blade, the blade widening slightly towards the point. S-shaped crossguard worked from the blade stock, one end bent upwards, one downwards. Grip with two horn scales with three rivets and white metal grip cap with lanyard eye. At the base of the blade the trademark arm with forging hammer above a crown, below it probably “LEGITIMO” (last letter faintly struck), and the factory stamp “COLLINS & Co / HARTFORD / ACERO FINO / CALIDAD / GARANTIZADA / No 326”. Embossed leather scabbard with scroll decoration and the trademark arm with hammer above crown, throat and chape of white metal, the scabbard damaged. One grip scale cracked, blade stained. L. 98 cm, blade length 81 cm. The Collins Company, founded in 1826 by Samuel W. Collins and his brother David in Canton (Connecticut), gave the factory site the name Collinsville; in the 1840s it added the machete to its range and, at times in over 150 patterns to 35 countries, supplied four fifths of the machetes traded worldwide, above all to Central and South America, where a good machete was simply called “un Collins”. The trademark with the crowned hammer arm was struck on the tools from December 1875 and, from 1876, used with the word “Legitimus” as a mark of authenticity against the numerous imitations, against which the firm litigated in England and Germany. The firm's Spanish-language trademark labels urged buyers to look for the stamp if they wanted “los legitimos de Sam W. Collins”; like the blades, they bore the trading address “Collins & Co. Hartford”, although the works were in Collinsville. The pattern number (“No 326”) designates the blade pattern of the catalogue; Collins adapted its patterns to individual export markets, and thus for Cuba, after the import ban by the Spanish colonial administration circa 1865, pattern 323 with a truncated point was developed from pattern 23. The firm closed in 1966; the foreign rights passed to the Stanley Works, which continued to have machetes made under the Collins brand in Latin America.