Very odd Sudanese sword for discussion

[Lew]

I would say this is a composite sword. The scabbard has thin rings which indicates it was made post 1950 or so. The older scabbards had wide flattened rings. Looks like someone copied a Viking hilt and added some extra tidbits .

[Mefidk]

Wow - a good example of why its worth keeping tabs on all the modern sword catalogues!

I suppose this is at least a new variant on kaskara blades in medieval hilts

[Iain]

Thanks guys for all the comments and detective work. Certainly looks like Timo is spot on with the Del Tin hilt.

This is one of the reasons I wanted to post this here - something just felt off about it. I always get nervous when a one of a kind sword shows up that's supposedly genuine in a culture that stuck to a particular pattern pretty rigidly. I'd actually done a little photoshoped image without the knobs on this hilt to illustrate just how close, well now it appears identical, this was to a viking hilt. Obviously no need to post that now.

I guess this just goes to show the interest generated by thinking something is rare and unusual leads to some cloudy judgement and someone spending a lot of money for nothing - I am quite curious now where this ended up. The sad thing out of all this I think is that because Christie's sold it, it will probably knock around in the collecting world for quite a while longer as a genuine article.

[Martin Lubojacky]

Would Christies be able to admit a mistake (if the knew about it) ?

[Tim Simmons]

Inspiration?

[A.alnakkas]

Well to be fair the christie's sword hilt looks hand made compared to the Del Tin one :P but its frightening to know there are such items going for alot of money!

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by Tim Simmons

Inspiration?

I think that the inspiration for the Del Tin is the sword shown on pages 44=45 of Ian Peirce, "Swords of the Viking Age", Boydell Press 2002. The sword is C1572, Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen. The hilt is bronze or brass over iron. There are some other metal hilted (i.e., with metal grip as will as metal pommel and guard) Viking swords known, often with silver or gold. This particular sword is nice for reproduction since brass is actually authentic (or close) rather than a substitute for gold.

The blade doesn't look like the Del Tin. But it does like like it might come from a modern repro. In particular, the blade past the fuller is diamond-section - I don't recall seeing this geometry on any authentic kaskara or kaskara0like sword. But it is very common on modern repros, since it's what you get when you start with a diamond section blade and cut a fuller into it. Usually, this makes a bad blade, since this means that the blade becomes thicker just where you want it to become thinner.

There are clones of the Del Tin, so if somebody doesn't want to invest Del Tin level money in a gamble like this, there might be alternatives. If it's a non-Del Tin, then the blade might be original to the hilt. On the side-by-side photos above, the edge of the Del Tin looks more rounded than the "antique".

I have a brass hilt a little like this. Undecorated sides - the pattern is only on the front and back, and the pommel is flatter front-to-back, included over the top, rather than rounded. Unfullered blade. But this one was at the cheap-and-nasty end of the scale, and there are probably others intermediate between this and the Del Tin. (This, or at least the blade, was intended as a pell sword, with the hilt perhaps to be recycled.)

[DAHenkel]

Originally Posted by Martin Lubojacky

Would Christies be able to admit a mistake (if the knew about it) ?

Even if you notified them Christie's is under no obligation to inform the buyer. Read the sales contract. The buyer meanwhile has 5 years to challenge the authenticity of the piece, after which it would be very difficult for them to get their money back.

The auction catalogues are full of things of questionable authenticity...indeed in their defense, its impossible for the people who do this to be completely sure about every piece in a sale as most auction houses process so much material...and of such variety they simply can't keep a specialist on staff who happens to be up on the latest Del Tin creations.

So the bottom line is still caveat emptor and bollocks to you if you get taken in mate