1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class VIII.: Robert Mole
248. MOLE, ROBERT, Broad Street, Birmingham — Manufacturer.
Gilt-mounted sword, blade of finest cast-steel, richly blued and gilt, the scabbard of crimson velvet, embroidered in gold, with elaborately worked gilt furniture.
Highly-mounted Mamaluke sword, with blade ornamented in dead gold, the scabbard of polished steel, with elegant gilt mountings.
Officers' regulation swords, used in the cavalry, infantry, and naval services.
Two matchets of best cast steel, as exported to America and the West Indies. Patterns of those used in the plantations of South America, the West Indies, and Africa.
[In addition to swords, Birmingham produces an article called a matchet, which in some countries is used to cut down sugar-cane, in others as a weapon of war, or to remove vegetable obstructions which impede the traveller in his progress through "the bush" or the tangled overhead of an American forest. The labour expended upon them is small: a great portion of it is performed by the tilt-hammer; they are hardened and ground, slightly glazed, and handled with common beech timber. Some idea of the consumption may be learned from the fact that one manufacturer has for the last six months been producing at the rate of 500 dozen per week.— W. C. A.]