not truly "tool" abuse but still abuse of a fine blade. also makes me wish I'd been able to find out the details of how the lady got the damned thing!!
older lady that lived down the road from my Great-grandparents in MS. had what she said was her husband's "old cavalry sword" , which a few years later I went back to find b/c it sure as the devil looked like the 1914 Saber designed by George S Patton! this lady had been using the derned thing pretty much like a general hacking tool around the garden and yard of her house. I remember the blade being pitted, dinged from hitting nails or other metal pieces, and dirty as hell. and the scabbard was dirty, with slightly dry rotted canvas and rusty steel but identifiable as well.
as I said I never knew the whole story behind how that thing wound up where it was (other than Mr. swords [yes their REAL name, kind of ironic], who was dead by the time I showed up, had it when she married him in the 1920's). by the time I saw another "Patton saber" a number of years had passed and Mrs. Swords had passed, her house had been condemned, and leveled. no one that I talked to about it knew what had happened to that saber. :( I truly wish I'd found it.