18C ivory hilt

[KuKulzA28]

Originally Posted by asomotif

Hmmm
The buyer is located in the USA and over the last year he only sold items on ebay. not bought a single piece for more than a year with this account.

Based on this I don;t think this is "new money" buying back his heritage.

perhaps not, but I can see where Amuk Murugul is coming from. It doesn't have to be a Moro selling his blade to a tourist who sells it to a collector, who ends up selling it on eBay.

It could be a Taiwanese person, who's got this old rusty ox-tail saber in his house... this thing has won his great great grandfather a duel, has been used in battles in the Taiping and Boxer rebellion, has been used to fight Japanese and Communists... has been used to slaughter Taiwanese people in 228... and now, somehow through a complex weave of marriages and gift-giving... has ended up in some Taiwanese business man's house. Well, he is moving soon to America, and he really doesn't care for weapons... especially old rusty ones with a history of killing killing killing killing killing... killing... selling the old sword might get him enough money to pay for the plane flight... one less thing to bring, and one "free" flight!

He could be Indian... could be Native American... could be Turkish... whoever, the sword is not valuable enough to be kept, other things take priority... the new culture has other means of expressing itself and status, the sword is useless to that person