Help with 3 'Cross of Agades' daggers

[Iain]

Originally Posted by thinreadline

THank you Iain but for this reiteration and confirmation As a collector and frustrated amateur curator I always feel the need to pin items down to geographical locations or tribal associations ... and frequently this simply isnt as straightforward as it is with European items . Having said that , pre 18th C ,the region of manufacture of European arms & armour was no indicator of 'end user' status , to use modern jargon ! I suppose all this is what makes our hobby so fascinating .

Yes, it is always tempting to be able to assign a nice neat attribution to an item but of course much harder in practice!

How do we classify a sword with a blade made in Germany, a hilt made in Kano and collected off a Tuareg warrior?

Over the years of collecting and researching Sahel arms I've thankfully found less and less of a need to try and pigeon hole things, which is probably good for my health!