1978 US National Championship Women’s Foil trophy sword. Presented to the winner, Gay D’Asaro. I don’t know if the Aldo Nadi Memorial was a commonly used name for the US women’s foil title or if this was unique to 1978.
The overall length if 4′ 3.25″ and it weighs approximately 4 lbs, 12 oz. It’s a beast. Interestingly, it’s also a Kolombatovich. Oscar Kolombatovich ran a replica weapon company for many years and produced some beautiful pieces. Here is a page from his catalog that shows this exact piece, followed by a close up that shows basically the same view as the catalog drawing.
I hadn’t noticed that this was a Kolombatovich until I was reviewing the photographs and saw this one showing the Excalibur logo on the blade. Oscar’s pieces were manufactured in Spain.
Those swords were not, strictly speaking, US Fencing awards. Oscar Kolombatovich had contacts with the sword makers in Spain in order to get authentic reproductions to be used by the Metropolitan Opera and others. Already by 1964 he was donating trophies for the North Atlantic Sectional Championships. He began donating those swords as trophies for the Division I individual champions in 1966. It’s pictured on the cover of the July 1966 issue of American Fencing and there’s a brief article about it inside. His son, George, continued to give them out after his father’s death. George also gave out those swords (with a different inscription) to the Most Valuable Player at Columbia and St. Johns. They got the swords directly from Spain without any inscription. George then acid etched the inscriptions by hand himself. I’m not sure when he stopped donating those swords but I think it was around 1980. I have one for winning in 1976.
I did a better illustration of that sword. I’ll post it on your facebook thread.