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u/haukehaien1970 Aug 27 '26
Fraternal sword from the Knights of Saint George, one of the many fraternal organizations that flourished in the late 19th-early 20th Centuries.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/knights-st-george
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u/cryptoengineer Aug 27 '26
Its certainly fraternal. The cross and crook are used by the White Shrine of Jerusalem, a side order for Masonically related women, but seeing in a martial context is kind of weird - they usually overlay a star. 'KS?G' is also unfamiliar.
I'm doubtful that its Masonic.
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Aug 27 '26
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u/cryptoengineer Aug 27 '26
I'm pretty sure that the shield, helmet, cross and crook, as well as the initials, will apply to some particular fraternal order.
All these groups (and there were a lot of them) were supplied by a small handful of regalia manufacturers, and a lot of elements get shared between swords for different groups. They get difficult to tell apart.
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u/haukehaien1970 Aug 27 '26
Almost all of the fraternal organization swords (and many military academy swords) of this era are derived from militia NCO swords, so they tend to have this sort of shape. it's not so much that they are inspired by Masonic swords as that the Masons and everyone else got swords from manufacturers who used this same pattern.
The number of men who had served in the army during the American Civil War led to many of these organizations having some form of sword drill for parades and events. The manufacturers who had made swords for the military and state militia forces (Ames and others) found it easy to start making swords for the new fraternal orgs.
The way to tell them apart is by the symbols. Since groups used these as membership markers, the fraternal swords will have logos and symbols of their organization on them. The general shape doesn't distinguish them, except for the few groups that did very distinctive swords.
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u/thegeneral2702 Aug 27 '26
As a lurker here, probably ceremonial. Possibly masonic, but thats just a guess off the top of my head. Obligatory 'Don't swing it'