Appreciation

Emanuel · 20th July 2010, 04:33 AM

I started collecting due to a life-long interest in swords. I had no direct connection to them, but when I was six or seven I coveted an uncle's army/hunting knife.
My first swords were the stainless steel repro variety from the local shopping mall. I got my first real sword or dagger when I discovered ebay in 2005, joined this forum and got a keris from Henk, followed by a takouba, a khukri and so on. None of them had any specific story, or provenance or attribution, but I got an interesting feeling when holding them. I had an interesting dream about a keris the night before I received the one from Henk. I had no such feeling from a 10lb "ginuwine Toledo sword" that my sister brought me from a trip to Spain.

Since then I've been adding to the collection whenever I can. I've been snatching up flissa whenever possible even though I wonder "do I really need another?". I think humans are hoarders by nature. We find something we like and we try to accumulate as much of it as possible. Why else collect dozens of the same identical object? We feel good having many versions of the same thing. I find it odd that we don't get tired of them. Don't they get boring and mundane when we have dozens or hundreds of them? Pictures of Spiral's khukri walls and some of the keris collections come to mind.
I do discriminate, however. I only like khukri with the pre-WWI lines and hardly care for the British patterns. I love the British 1796 LC and HC sabres because of their proportions and fine lines, not because collectors say they are desirable. I fell in love with a picture of a flissa before I read about it. I generally go for pieces that look like they've been used once in their lives.

My collection room feels almost like an old church when I step in it and not for any spiritual/religious reason. I get the same feeling of old use and faint traces of what came before. I handle the pieces, examine them and think briefly about their lives before putting them back on the wall. I think that despite the modern ideal of consumerism we crave anchors to the past. We need something that has endured the test of time, perhaps especially when we undergo lots of change. I've moved around a fair bit in my life before settling here in Toronto. Perhaps elder collectors here have seen the quick pace of societal and technological change over the past century and look for something constant and unchanging? Keris may be newly produced, but the keris system is old and not too prone to change.

Would we feel different if tomorrow we found out that all the books on arms and all the fellow collectors here were a huge hoax? That our flissas, tulwars, khukris and keris were made within the past 80 years in a prop factory for 1920s Hollywood?

Emanuel · 20th July 2010, 04:59 AM

Another thought...

Perhaps we do indeed fetishize our collections' significance in their lives and through them live what we cannot directly achieve. They had a clear purpose and they were very important to their makers, owners, their societies. They did what we cannot, went where we cannot. We harken to that feeling of usefulness and purpose when that seems to be lacking these days. The tool had a strict purpose and its user had an equally well-defined purpose. Use the tool for the specific objective. These days it seems like much of our lives lacks purpose. Go to school, get higher education, get a "respectable" job, get an office, get a house, get a car, get a tv, watch tv garbage, conform to standards, perpetuate the cycle with offspring. Once in a while achieve something relevant to the multitudes at large and be widely remembered.

In counter-point, loads of people care not a damn about old things. They crave change and piles of rusty swords are garbage. I think these people are crazy and dangerous...

Of course there is also obsessive compulsion. Collect paper clips...paper clips are safe...touch object that came into contact with other objects of idolatry and fetishism...

I prefer the thought of collectors as wardens, keepers and caretakers of the world's material culture for collective memory.

20th July 2010, 04:33 AM	#1
Emanuel Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,242	I started collecting due to a life-long interest in swords. I had no direct connection to them, but when I was six or seven I coveted an uncle's army/hunting knife. My first swords were the stainless steel repro variety from the local shopping mall. I got my first real sword or dagger when I discovered ebay in 2005, joined this forum and got a keris from Henk, followed by a takouba, a khukri and so on. None of them had any specific story, or provenance or attribution, but I got an interesting feeling when holding them. I had an interesting dream about a keris the night before I received the one from Henk. I had no such feeling from a 10lb "ginuwine Toledo sword" that my sister brought me from a trip to Spain. Since then I've been adding to the collection whenever I can. I've been snatching up flissa whenever possible even though I wonder "do I really need another?". I think humans are hoarders by nature. We find something we like and we try to accumulate as much of it as possible. Why else collect dozens of the same identical object? We feel good having many versions of the same thing. I find it odd that we don't get tired of them. Don't they get boring and mundane when we have dozens or hundreds of them? Pictures of Spiral's khukri walls and some of the keris collections come to mind. I do discriminate, however. I only like khukri with the pre-WWI lines and hardly care for the British patterns. I love the British 1796 LC and HC sabres because of their proportions and fine lines, not because collectors say they are desirable. I fell in love with a picture of a flissa before I read about it. I generally go for pieces that look like they've been used once in their lives. My collection room feels almost like an old church when I step in it and not for any spiritual/religious reason. I get the same feeling of old use and faint traces of what came before. I handle the pieces, examine them and think briefly about their lives before putting them back on the wall. I think that despite the modern ideal of consumerism we crave anchors to the past. We need something that has endured the test of time, perhaps especially when we undergo lots of change. I've moved around a fair bit in my life before settling here in Toronto. Perhaps elder collectors here have seen the quick pace of societal and technological change over the past century and look for something constant and unchanging? Keris may be newly produced, but the keris system is old and not too prone to change. Would we feel different if tomorrow we found out that all the books on arms and all the fellow collectors here were a huge hoax? That our flissas, tulwars, khukris and keris were made within the past 80 years in a prop factory for 1920s Hollywood? Last edited by Emanuel; 20th July 2010 at 04:47 AM.

20th July 2010, 04:59 AM	#2
Emanuel Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,242	Another thought... Perhaps we do indeed fetishize our collections' significance in their lives and through them live what we cannot directly achieve. They had a clear purpose and they were very important to their makers, owners, their societies. They did what we cannot, went where we cannot. We harken to that feeling of usefulness and purpose when that seems to be lacking these days. The tool had a strict purpose and its user had an equally well-defined purpose. Use the tool for the specific objective. These days it seems like much of our lives lacks purpose. Go to school, get higher education, get a "respectable" job, get an office, get a house, get a car, get a tv, watch tv garbage, conform to standards, perpetuate the cycle with offspring. Once in a while achieve something relevant to the multitudes at large and be widely remembered. In counter-point, loads of people care not a damn about old things. They crave change and piles of rusty swords are garbage. I think these people are crazy and dangerous... Of course there is also obsessive compulsion. Collect paper clips...paper clips are safe...touch object that came into contact with other objects of idolatry and fetishism... I prefer the thought of collectors as wardens, keepers and caretakers of the world's material culture for collective memory.