Origins of this yatagan.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by TVV

I am sorry but am I the only one here who feels we are debating late 20th century (at best) fittings? Referring to the yataghan starting this thread and the one in post 18, not the Foca examples of course.

Teodor

Anything is possible when it comes to such items, do you have a particular reason for thinking that this is recent work, have you seen similar examples?

[estcrh]

The engraving on both blades and the hilts seem to be quite similar in my opinion.

[TVV]

Originally Posted by estcrh

Anything is possible when it comes to such items, do you have a particular reason for thinking that this is recent work, have you seen similar examples?

Ariel already summed it up nicely: while the bolster and the hilt band may be original to the blades, the wooden hilts and the scabbards are most likely modern. The material on the hilt is wrong, which is a result of traditional materials such as walrus ivory or dark horn being hard to obtain. And the style of the decoration is way off as well: it looks like a modern artist's own interpretation, as opposed to period craftsmen who usually repeated a few motifs, found across a wide range of surviving specimens. Finally, the workmanship of the scabbard metal parts is too crude to believe it could have passed the standards of the esnafs (guilds) back in the day.

Now, this does not suggest any attempt to deceive. I just consider these to be a modern attempt at restoration.

Teodor

P.S. Ariel is correct that there is a multitude of "artists" who restore old weapons in Bulgaria, with results varying in quality and appearance. I am also sure that Bulgaria is not unique in this regard. I can provide examples, but I do not feel modern replicas should be the focus of these fora.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by TVV

Now, this does not suggest any attempt to deceive. I just consider these to be a modern attempt at restoration.

I can provide examples, but I do not feel modern replicas should be the focus of these fora.

I do not think anyone here will object to examples that can be learned from being posted.

[ariel]

What makes my antennae twitching is the apparently different metals of the bolster parts and the scabbard fittings, the clumsiness of the scabbard's mouth ( the real things are almost in line with the handle and not almost twice as thick as here) and the crudeness of the scabbard decoration. I am also very uneasy about the " fish head": usually it is almost like a separate detail, turned up and more like a "dolphin-head". This one is short, stubby and looks like a herring:-) .

The more I look at it, the less I like it.

But the blade is unquestionably real.

TVV is correct: Bulgaria is not the only one place in the world exporting benign or not so benign:-) "restorations". Simply I saw quite a lot of things on E-Bay coming from there with similar features and very similar wooden ears of a non-traditional contour.

[Battara]

Not considered these thoughts. Good for learning...........

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

TVV is correct: Bulgaria is not the only one place in the world exporting benign or not so benign:-) "restorations". Simply I saw quite a lot of things on E-Bay coming from there with similar features and very similar wooden ears of a non-traditional contour.

I have been watching Ebay auctions for years, and while I have seen many, many types of restorations were the person who made the handle and or scabbard etc did no better than a crude replica of the originals, this one is different than any other I have seen so if you or anyone here has an example that they think is similar work please post it for future reference.

There is a difference between a folkish restoration and a crude one, we all know that many weapons have been worked on at one time in their lives such as hilts, scabbards etc. Since I have seen this yatagan up close I can say that the work does not appear to be crude, someone knew what they were doing, maybe working within their abilitys but there is an artistic/folk art aspect to the work, certainly there was no attempt to fool anyone or it would not look like this.

If the work is new or much newer than it appears to be (which I know may be a possibility), someone was quite good at aging, when looked at closely nothing about it looks new, it could easily be 50 yrs old or 6 months old, which is why I posted it here, to see if any similar examples turn up.

[ariel]

Sorry, but I can't help you: I had never saved pics of what I viewed as obvious forgery.
But you might be right: it might have been an honest but semi-competent restoration with no intent to deceive. We will never know: there is no way we can read thoughts, be it those of an unnamed restorer, admiral Angria's or a Sikh "immortal" hurling his chakra at the enemy.
We can be reasonably sure that our dogs respect us, but the cats? Never.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ariel

Sorry, but I can't help you: I had never saved pics of what I viewed as obvious forgery.

There is a big difference between a "forgery" which implies an attempt to decieve and a restoration, no matter what the level of workmanship. As for yatagan, many original ones were not very elegant, some I have seen could be called crude when compaired to the ones made for wealthy individuals. There was a wide gap between the plain and elaborate examples.

[TVV]

Originally Posted by estcrh

I do not think anyone here will object to examples that can be learned from being posted.

Here are some examples of work from a contemporary restorer in Bulgaria: as you can see, a good craftsman with the right materials and good knowledge can indeed restore hilts to look very close to original. There is nothing wrong with this, just like there is nothing wrong with some of the work of forumites such as Battara, especially since to my knowledge none of the examples I am showing were ever meant to deceive anyone.

Good work as this is neither easy nor cheap, but of course, not every restorer out there is of the same skill level or integrity.

Sincerely,
Teodor