Caveat emptor!!!
 

Whoever wants to part with his money needs to look no further than here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
This one has very nice Persian blade and modern Syrian everything else. The blade is $750, the rest ($18,000) is Damascus municipal tax and VAT
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
the signature of Assad Ullah MUST have looked just like that!
And this one
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
was already sold at least once and we have discussed it already:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
Who bid on this sword 33 times? Why was it offered again if it was already sold?
I have my explanations, but you may just add to the list...

Ariel, are you suggesting that the stones in that first sword aren't reall ROBIES! :eek: :rolleyes:

Robb-eries, more likely :D

Well , does anyone think the blades are old ?
So these are all old blades remounted recently ?
The sin of omission ?

Rick,
Were you on O.J.'s defence team? :D :D
"If the blade doesn't fit, you... still acquit!"

No seriously Ariel , I'm no encyclopaedia of knowledge on these pieces .
Point out for me and "The Lurkers" ;) :D what to look for and the giveaways ; I agree the prices are too high but aside from that I would appreciate you taking me to school about these pieces .
Honest ! :)

All the fittings are completely intact, with nary a scratch Their execution is rather crude, not compatible with old blades and way lower in quality than the original repousse techniques. The enamel is garish. Compare it to the examples in Figiel's collection catalogue.
Just for the fun of it, look at:

http://syriangate.com/swords.htm

They have multiple examples of new swords, combinations of old blades/new fittings etc.
The prices are way higher than what can be reasonably expected on e-bay.
Most of those go to Saudi Arabia or nearby. That is what we support by driving gas-guzzlers in these day and age.
Next time you need a car, think Scion or Smart. You can buy one of them for about the same price as a sword from the Damascus Souk.

Ariel,

You've made a nice point, and it's hard to disagree with the fact that the seller is asking above the norm. However, I think the Assad Allah stamps are authentic (the gold stamp is obviuosly new). It's a nice blade, and with the hilt - would $750 be an extreme, but the other way around? :)

Why shouldnt a beautiful wootz blade, like the ones seen here, cost as much as that, whilst you have many plain Japanese "superior" katana's, which cost at least twice more?

M.C. This is exactly my point. $750 for a blade like this would be a "bargain". Now, $18K is a lot, but it's not a "robbery" as previously stated by others (and I am sure humorously as well). In reality, even in Syria a sword like this will have a similar price tag, but could be bought for half of that.
Ariel, see what you've started :)

The $755/$18,000 ratio was humorous.
No doubt in my mind that the blades are real and very good, especially the one with gold inlay and a signature. I doubt very much it is a real AssadUllah's signature purely on statistical grounds: he must have made ,- what?- 100? 200?- swords in his lifetime, but thousands of swordmakers put his name on their swords. If his signature is real, and it requires careful evaluation that cannot be done by us, screen gazers, then this sword should be valued way above $18,000. If not, it should be viewed as yet another very good Persian blade and bring what the market will bear.
However, my point is that both swords were grossly misrepresented. We all would agree that the fittings are modern. Well, even that is not a sin. But to claim that " all is original" is blatantly not true. This is a "restored" sword and should have been presented as such.
The circumstances of the repeated "sale" of the sword with the plainer blade
are intriguing. What "men with no names" bid on it? Who "wins" it ? Why is it appearing again and again at no reserve, reaching high prices and then being re-listed?
All together makes me wonder about the whole operation and the authenticity of other items as well. Buying from that seller is out of the question for me (even if I could spend $18,755 :D )

Remember, AssadUllah means "God's Lion", so ANY sword with Persian Lion stamp IS AssadUllah. It's not a person, it's a school.
I just saw a real AL blade (with old AL name stamp as a person, not a school, just like in the Fiegel catalogue) just for $4K. BUT how do you tell who put the stamp on :)

I have to repectfully disagree: Assad Ullah was a real person, just like Masamune in Japan, Andrea Ferrara in Italy and Geurk Elizarashvili in Georgia.
Collectors and museums pay high prices for their individual works and much lesser prices for their imitators.
A painting by "Van Gogh's contemporary" is unlikely to fetch $30 million :rolleyes:
That is why some people collect just autographs: the hand of a famous person made it.
Any sword with a Persian Lion? Well, then a 40 yo Iranian Army sword with a Pahlavi stamp would qualify :eek:
And as for a blade with Assad Ullah's stamp going for $4K... the seller must have known what he was selling.... But, if true, the $18,000 price for one of the swords in question would be even harder to justify, isn't it? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Apparently, Assadullah is still alive with us, and still making swords, in Syria, many newly made crap is still marked with the lion mark, "assadullah", and the famous phrase "Ya qadhi kul-il-hajat", "Oh fullfiller of all needs" :D Seriously, there are more probably more than 800 blades in worldwide circulation, all bearing the assadullah sign, while most are Persian trade blades, noted specifically in Mr.Oliver Pinchot's great article, some must have been of assadullah's manufacture himself. Still, its not only the assadullah mark that gives great value to wootz blades, look at the other unmarked persian wootz blade, I would say that that blade, is probably was more valuable historically, than the marked one, as the unmarked blade is not a trade blade, its a blade of very high quality, and I suppose that commercialism has not played an important factor in its production, as with most persian trade blades.

I think Bazalai is more appropriate here than Geurk - Geurk "copies" come up here and there, while it is relatively easy to find an obviously fake Bazalai.

To the point of prices and japanese swords - I doubt I would ever buy a 2000$+ sword from a dealer without NBHTK or NHTK papers. I mean, why would such an expensive sword lack basic 100$ or so appraisal papers ? Something must be wrong with this picture. The very least one should do is to ask dealer to guarantee certain minimal appraisal at NBHTK.

Now here we have a smudgy-wudgy signature that looks nice, but I would not buy 18,000GBP persian sword for the kicks of it, as I would not buy 18,000$ japanese sword without papers, and I would not buy 18,000$ Rembrandt, even if the signature looks good on a photograph. Taking in mind that all other swords we've seen sold so far are rather obviously misrepresented, I truly wonder if anyone would bite this AA blade.

I would buy a very expensive sword if it would be valuable as it is; but things like famous attribution or historic provenance are not "ebay" material.

btw, lots of these blades are sham and not wootz.

Sham, is a kind of low contrast wootz, forged mainly in Damascus, and does not have the beauty of Persian wootz. Now I know that Verhoeven claims differently, but still, it was a crucible steel, forged in the same way as other wootz, the only difference is a slight difference in metallurgy, and pattern. AS for its value, of course, its much less valuable as a collectors item, than a quality persian wootz blade.

Ariel,

Yes, AL was a Real Person, but would a Ford car sticker indicate Henry Ford built it himself? :) Once again, Al was a school, and I think many AL-name-stamps were used by his students. Just in the past month alone I saw at least 20 AL-NAME stamps, all are genuine old, authentically carved or coftgaried. Have I seen 10% of all AL-made blades already :)

Please look at this post:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...0275#post20275

The top stamp reads "Made by AL of Isfahan". The bottom is "Yakadia al-Hajad"/"O Fulfiller of Needs". The first, by the way, is a NEW stamp (I know the maker). And it fulled many. If it'd stamped 100 years ago, noone would know :)

surely a blade is judged in value according to other factors.
a signature must be taken as right, unless other factors tell you its wrong (otherwise you are entering a never ending debate). blades with assad allah inscriptions are as common as andrea ferraras, so there is no way of telling whether all are accurate. all you can do is judge the age and the quality.
i have a fantastic sword which is 17th and made by master craftsman. it has the assad signature inlaid by a very good hand. whether its is 'real' or not is meaningless. his signature, and that of his son were copied even in the 17thC.
so, my sword is a 'good 17thC shamshir blade with an inlaid assad allah signature', and not a 'good 17thC shamshir blade made by assad allah'.
its value is comparative to a 'genuine' assad allah, as no one can prove either mine is right or the one called genuine is right. we can speculate they are of the right date and made by a master crafstman of the time.
to me that is plenty.
btw, the sword on ebay isnt 17thC and the signature is crude anyway.
as for value of either and all, that is down to the buyer. the internet and ebay has no way of judging value, as two collectors that desperately want the same piece will pay whatever to get it. 18k and much more has been paid for good blades, and i've seen the same paid for utter rubbish.
unfortunately money cant buy taste.