The Italians lost big time.

Hi, Martin (and everyone...). I have been playing with photoshop... and I came up with this. Julius Voos made a lot of blades for Abyssinia. The deep blue and the gold have not survived in the vast majority of the cases. The blades must have been magnificent. Other Solingen manufacturers made very similar blades and the proper identification is difficult. I based the identification of patterns 3 and 5 on the etching pattern. I have a shotel with looks pretty close to the first from the right, but I saw a drawing in an Eickhorn catalogue that looks almost identical, so I cannot be sure. Does anyone have a better picture of the Voos catalogue? Does anyone have other patterns of Voos blades? There is near mint example of pattern #2 in an Austrian Museum. I have to find the picture and post it. Cheers, RON

Found the picture of Voos #2 pattern.... Santa, where are you??

I am not 100 % sure, nevertheless I think it is bakelite.

And it is original mount for sure.

As you recalled, bakelite was also used for the hilts. That time ordinary people looked at utility function first of all, which was perfect, and these artefacts have their historical value, now.

Hi, thank you for the Voos catalogue pictures again. For me it is enlightening and a little surprise that the shapes Nos 4, 5 and 1 were delivered from Solingen. (I saw shape No 4 two times only in 25 years and always mounted with brass handle. And shape No 1 once only without handle, heavily rusty...)

Pattern No 4 from J. Voos catalogue with brass handle (National Museum, Addis Ababa)

A couple of comments. The grip (Martin, do you actually have the sword?) looks like burl to me. I can see a couple of tiny cracks on the top flares. But I could be wrong. Bakelite was indeed very popular in Europe at the beginning of the last century, but all the grips I have seen are solid black. I have swords with wood grips covered with thick "plastic" that look like solid plastic. They are blackish green. So, Martin, if you have the sword at hand, you can answer the question. Then, this blade pattern is quite intriguing. When I started collecting Ethiopian blades (MANY years ago) I was offered one of these swords by a dealer from Rome. I turned it down as I thought that it had been "made up" with an Indo-Persian/Caucasic blade.... Years later I came across the Voos catalogue. Since then, I have seen four. One with the greenish black grip. One unbelievable Damascus blade with gold decoration and inscription (in the hands of a Russian collector). The latest one to surface was on Ebay a couple of months ago. European style grip. Here it is. Cheers, Ron

I would say it is really bakelite. (There were various colour combinations developped for jewellery producers that time... )

OK. Bakelite it is. Now, here is a couple of pictures of a SPECIAL Voos blade....

Now this is an IMPRESSIVE blade!!!! It looks like the #6 blade shown on the Voos chart. Ron, thank you so much for sharing this information on Voos!
While I have always known of the Wilkinson charts etc. and that Solingen produced blades for Abyssinia, I had not known of Voos and this is a remarkable expansion of the topic of Ethiopian swords for me personally.
In the many years of arms study I have had, you have been the 'go to' guy for virtually any question on them!
Thank you for this info, and the years of work you have always shared here.