A Victorian officer’s presentation sword of the Norfolk Volunteer Artillery, the slightly curved 83cm blade by Hobson & Sons, Lexington Street, Golden Square, London, back-edged and spear-pointed, etched with crowned VR cypher, winged lightning, flaming grenade, field gun and owner’s initials ‘PEB’, all within intricate foliate patterns, the presentation inscription appears within a scrolling ribbon surounded by foliate patterns running down the length of one side of the blade, ‘Presented to Captain Phillip Edward Back by the Non-Commissioned Officer’s & Men of the 3rd. & 4th. Batteries, 1st. Volunteer (Norfolk) Brigade Eastern Division Royal Artillery, 21st. February, 1887’ regulation steel 3 bar guard, half chequered back-strap and stepped pommel, fish-skin covered grip, complete with its steel scabbard with two hanging rings, blade somewhat discoloured, grip lacking wire binding and scabbard lacking wood liner
£250-300

Sold with a long biography and portrait photograph of Back in uniform copied from ‘The Norfolk Military Gazette’ for October 1896, he also appears in Pikes ‘Contemporary Biographies’ as Chairman and Director of Back’s Limited, wine merchants, cordials and mineral water manufacturers, of Norwich, Yarmouth and Lowestoft, sold with further details including a copy of the above

Born in 1896, commissined in 1881, he retired as a Lt. Colonel in 1904.