Ottoman Court Dagger for Comment

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Yannis

Well, after your comments I have to add

1. I have seen bronze with corals, silver with corals but not all three together (and in different styles). The items of Oriental Arms, you are pointing for us CourseEight, are silver with corals.

2. Ariel, yes there are Greek straight yataghans with ears like this, but not with corals, at least not on the scabbard. The use of corals is typical turkish style. Of course during the battles lot of weapons were changing hands. The silver part of scabbard could be later and Greek.

3. The blade could come from a thousand places. Napoleons army in Egypt, French diplomats, French volunteers (Philellenes) who helped Greek revolution etc.

4. Red Mediterranean corals are protected species under European Union law so you cannot find new ones here to replace them. I suppose (and I hope) that in US you find red corals from other seas, but these may look different on the item.

1. Paraphrasing my friend (surgeon) "If you have not seen a particular weapon, you have not seen enough of them"

2. Corals were very much in use (besides Northern Turkey) in Serbia and Bosnia ( short walk to Greece) and North Africa.
3.100% agreement
4. European Union????? Laws????? In the Mediterranean?????

There is still enough venerable Levantine spirit not to care about such pesky matters like "protected species" .
Besides, half of the Mediterranean countries are not members of the EU and do not give a dam about Brussels bureaucrats.