Islamic Arms and Armor in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

rand · 12th February 2016, 05:02 PM

Opening the book for the first time immediately saw quality photo's of identified early chain mail armor with close-up images of links showing construction. This alone made the book worth getting as their are few images of these available.

When the Met starts including the back side photo's of armor their value go's up a notch. The Italian arms and armor started doing this long ago and that is one of the reasons those books carry value.

Referring to an educational system opinion having higher value than a collectors determination is short sighted as long as the collectors opinion is collaberated by research that can be scrutinized the same way the edu. opinion can be scrutinized.

In many ways the collector can have a more trained eye because they purchase objects and in doing so will take very close inspections to identify an object. I would rate a long term edu. professor at the same level as a long time serious collector and have seen from experience that there is a keen interest to share information both ways.

rand

estcrh · 12th February 2016, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rand

Opening the book for the first time immediately saw quality photo's of identified early chain mail armor with close-up images of links showing construction. This alone made the book worth getting as their are few images of these available.

Rand, anyone can show photos of mail, unless it is properly photographed (the outside and inside of the links) identified and described it will not be to helpful. Much of the Mets mail is not properly described (round riveted, wedge riveted, alternating rows of solid and riveted links etc) and I have doubts about some of their descriptions, I hope this book does a better job.

There are actually a lot of close up images of mail armor from all ages and cultures available, here are some links with more mail armor images than anywere else in the world.

Indo-Persian mail.
https://www.pinterest.com/worldantiq...an-mail-armor/

Japanese mail.
https://www.pinterest.com/worldantiq...-armor-kusari/

European mail.
https://www.pinterest.com/worldantiq...an-mail-armor/

Jens Nordlunde · 12th February 2016, 10:38 PM

Nice to 'see' you again rand:-) - it has been a while.
As you have seen the forum has changed a lot since the 'old' days, so many with a lot of knowledge have left, and new ones have turned up.

12th February 2016, 05:02 PM	#1
rand Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Virginia Posts: 539	Met Islamic Arms and Armor book Opening the book for the first time immediately saw quality photo's of identified early chain mail armor with close-up images of links showing construction. This alone made the book worth getting as their are few images of these available. When the Met starts including the back side photo's of armor their value go's up a notch. The Italian arms and armor started doing this long ago and that is one of the reasons those books carry value. Referring to an educational system opinion having higher value than a collectors determination is short sighted as long as the collectors opinion is collaberated by research that can be scrutinized the same way the edu. opinion can be scrutinized. In many ways the collector can have a more trained eye because they purchase objects and in doing so will take very close inspections to identify an object. I would rate a long term edu. professor at the same level as a long time serious collector and have seen from experience that there is a keen interest to share information both ways. rand

12th February 2016, 10:38 PM	#3
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,718	Nice to 'see' you again rand:-) - it has been a while. As you have seen the forum has changed a lot since the 'old' days, so many with a lot of knowledge have left, and new ones have turned up.