New member with a sword for review

Jim McDougall · 9th June 2016, 05:50 PM

Hi Kris,
I am so glad to see someone who is among the many guests we have visiting and reading our pages come in to join us!! Welcome!

Every item that is shared here gives us all the opportunity to learn from actual examples and share experience and ideas, so sometimes the outcomes can not be as we always wish. However, it is the learning that is the true value.

There is indeed an ever burgeoning paranoia concerning fraudulently produced 'antiquities', and it is certainly well placed in many cases. In studying ethnographic items, it is often important to remember that many regions had a dynamic spectrum of would be artisans, who ranged from skilled in degree to lower groups. These lower strata might have been in remote areas, and often used actual components acquired in trade from damaged weapons, and tried to imitate genuine examples they had seen.

In my opinion, most items fashioned deliberately for tourists or as souveniers are typically created with every effort to appear authentic.
In cases where items might have a shabbily crafted aura, and clearly apparent damage left intact, these suggest to me an item which may well have been put together to provide a crude, but worthy weapon for a native person to serve as his traditional arm.

Consider that many tribal peoples are not necessarily literate or well informed, and they would be much more forgiving in acceptance of these infirmities in a weapon, certainly being happy to have a weapon with at least the character of others they had seen .

I would be inclined to think this may have been a weapon somewhat reworked in the remote Bedouin spheres in Arabia, which of course cover vast areas. However, it is well known that the weapons used by these versatile groups span a remarkable spectrum of quality. The Persian trade blades with the Assad Allah cartouche were certainly well known (I have seen numbers of them from Bedouin provenance), and would of course been favored to copy . The possible fire damage seems likely to have been of quite genuine circumstances, as trying to age a weapon artificially would not have been a priority in a situation to render a weapon serviceable in these cases.

Please pardon the dissertation, but I wanted to offer a different perspective as an option from the notion of the many 'less than authentic' weapons out there.

Thank you again for sharing it with us, and again welcome. We hope you are on the way to many new adventures in collecting these arms, and to seeing them here!

All the best
Jim

9th June 2016, 05:50 PM	#6
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 9,839	Hi Kris, I am so glad to see someone who is among the many guests we have visiting and reading our pages come in to join us!! Welcome! Every item that is shared here gives us all the opportunity to learn from actual examples and share experience and ideas, so sometimes the outcomes can not be as we always wish. However, it is the learning that is the true value. There is indeed an ever burgeoning paranoia concerning fraudulently produced 'antiquities', and it is certainly well placed in many cases. In studying ethnographic items, it is often important to remember that many regions had a dynamic spectrum of would be artisans, who ranged from skilled in degree to lower groups. These lower strata might have been in remote areas, and often used actual components acquired in trade from damaged weapons, and tried to imitate genuine examples they had seen. In my opinion, most items fashioned deliberately for tourists or as souveniers are typically created with every effort to appear authentic. In cases where items might have a shabbily crafted aura, and clearly apparent damage left intact, these suggest to me an item which may well have been put together to provide a crude, but worthy weapon for a native person to serve as his traditional arm. Consider that many tribal peoples are not necessarily literate or well informed, and they would be much more forgiving in acceptance of these infirmities in a weapon, certainly being happy to have a weapon with at least the character of others they had seen . I would be inclined to think this may have been a weapon somewhat reworked in the remote Bedouin spheres in Arabia, which of course cover vast areas. However, it is well known that the weapons used by these versatile groups span a remarkable spectrum of quality. The Persian trade blades with the Assad Allah cartouche were certainly well known (I have seen numbers of them from Bedouin provenance), and would of course been favored to copy . The possible fire damage seems likely to have been of quite genuine circumstances, as trying to age a weapon artificially would not have been a priority in a situation to render a weapon serviceable in these cases. Please pardon the dissertation, but I wanted to offer a different perspective as an option from the notion of the many 'less than authentic' weapons out there. Thank you again for sharing it with us, and again welcome. We hope you are on the way to many new adventures in collecting these arms, and to seeing them here! All the best Jim