Shaver Cool -- redux

[werecow]

For those members who have been visiting these pages since the early 2000s, I have a little trip down memory lane. You may recall the infamous "Shaver Cool" thread that discussed a sword with the inscription "Shaver Cool" and "Batavia" on the blade as well as a VOC marking of the Dutch East Indies Company. This was a thread that would not die. The subject of the thread bemused the best of minds here for months. Unfortunately, the thread died when the old UBB forum pages were hacked. Perhaps the "wayback machine" can resurrect some of it.

FWIW I've only been frequenting this forum since around the start of COVID and I remember this like I was there.

I saw one get auctioned off last year at catawiki for (IIRC) €1100 plus auction fee and rising (at that point I had to avert my eyes but I believe I posted here - EDIT: Ah, yes, so I did, it was €1101 + 9% + shipping - EDIT 2: Oh god, was searching google to find the catawiki one... there's so many of them... I found three in just two minutes of google image searching).
It was not of the same stellar quality as the specimen in this post.

Mods, apologies in case this is not allowed, but just to make the point about cautionary tales with bidding sites:

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And finally the one I watched in horror:

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AAAAAAAAAAAAH.