Indian katar - why so expensive?

[David R]

A personal observation only, value is always a shifting paradigm, money available, desirability, rarity and in an auction... competition.

Other than that, really good Katar are rare, the bulk of them that I have seen at arms fairs are fairly plain, and in bad condition.

[corrado26]

For your consolation: Here in Germany nobody will buy a katar, because this type of weapon is a forbidden one over here and the possession of it is illegal and strongly punished

[Drabant1701]

Originally Posted by David R

A personal observation only, value is always a shifting paradigm, money available, desirability, rarity and in an auction... competition.

Other than that, really good Katar are rare, the bulk of them that I have seen at arms fairs are fairly plain, and in bad condition.

I agree. I have seen many auctions where competition leads to inflated prices. It may just be people with unlimited funds. But what bugs me here is that normaly I can say; well they payed twice what that was worth. In this case I really can not, it may well be the right price.
Often when things get really expensive it tend to have provenance, or be engraved with the owners name, or be made of jade and diamonds and rubies.
So I thought maybe Im missing something that the experienced collectors (like Jens) will pick up on. Somethinh in the line of; the tiger patterna was only allowed on weapons belonging to the 17th century mugal emperor Soandso.

[Will M]

Even if one pays more than current value these items will reach that value and surpass it in time. I'm not in that league spending 10's of $1000's.
The rivet through the blade is not professionally done and most likely a later replacement but would raise the question of the blade being original to the hilt.

[asomotif]

India is a fast growing economy with some very wealthy people.
This piece might well be bought by an indian who wants his history back
The same happens with chinese collectors buying china porcelain in western countries.

I added some of the pictures for later reference.

[Battara]

Thanks Asomotif.

In the future folks please post a picture and not just a link. Links disappear after time.

[Oliver Pinchot]

It's decorated in bubris or tiger stripes.
I didn't read the description but bidders probably assumed it has
some connection with Tipu Sultan.

[RAMBA]

Originally Posted by Oliver Pinchot

It's decorated in bubris or tiger stripes.
I didn't read the description but bidders probably assumed it has
some connection with Tipu Sultan.

I suspect this is the answer. No attribution as such in the description but clearly bidders associated the tiger stripes on this katar with Tipu Sultan.

[shayde78]

Any thoughts on the origin of the blade of the katar in question? Looks to be of possible European origin to my untrained eye. Scottish?
For the hammer price this piece realized, I was expecting a fine blade of wootz.

[Nihl]

If I had to guess, as a collector that does focus mostly on Indian weapons, the reason for the inflated price on this katar actually does come from (as Drabant suggested) its tiger stripes. These stripes are famously associated with Tipu Sultan, an 18th century South Indian ruler that was known for being pretty much being the last source of Indian resistance (and indeed the last independent kingdom) in South India against British expansion. He was known for being quite fond of tigers, and as a result had tiger faces and stripes and all sorts of tiger-related imagery on his possessions. For ease of reference a blunderbuss that is known to have been owned by him is attached. The problem with this is that, given his prominence in Indian history, his name and things representative of him (i.e. the tiger stripes) are then frequently attached to things in order to increase their worth, often quite dubiously as it is next to impossible to tell if a weapon was really owned by him or not. As a result, there are several "swords of Tipu Sultan", as well as guns and other such things that all have tigers featured on them in some way (attached is one such sword with very obvious tiger imagery). An example of clearly fraudulent attribution can be seen on Faganarms, where they justified selling a sword with a (relatively) roughly cast and decorated brass hilt for over $3,000 on the basis that it had a tiger-head pommel and "stripes" going down the handle (see https://www.faganarms.com/products/a...of-tipu-sultan, though a picture of the hilt is also attached). Though this katar is way more likely to have been owned by Tipu, it is at the same time entirely possible (I would argue, anyways,) that the koftgari artist that decorated it was simply a fan of waves.
Regardless though it certainly is quite a fine katar.

Additional factors would be the remarkably good condition the katar is in, given (specifically) how the koftgari decoration appears to have very few damages to it. There's also the fact that plenty of collectors/dealers see these items solely as art pieces, and as a result feel justified in spending exorbitant amounts of money on them in general (and an item with the "provenance" of being sold for so much means that it can be sold again - for the same price or higher - later on, should its owner ever need the money).

[Drabant1701]

Originally Posted by Nihl

If I had to guess, as a collector that does focus mostly on Indian weapons, the reason for the inflated price on this katar actually does come from (as Drabant suggested) its tiger stripes. These stripes are famously associated with Tipu Sultan, an 18th century South Indian ruler that was known for being pretty much being the last source of Indian resistance (and indeed the last independent kingdom) in South India against British expansion. He was known for being quite fond of tigers, and as a result had tiger faces and stripes and all sorts of tiger-related imagery on his possessions. For ease of reference a blunderbuss that is known to have been owned by him is attached. The problem with this is that, given his prominence in Indian history, his name and things representative of him (i.e. the tiger stripes) are then frequently attached to things in order to increase their worth, often quite dubiously as it is next to impossible to tell if a weapon was really owned by him or not. As a result, there are several "swords of Tipu Sultan", as well as guns and other such things that all have tigers featured on them in some way (attached is one such sword with very obvious tiger imagery). An example of clearly fraudulent attribution can be seen on Faganarms, where they justified selling a sword with a (relatively) roughly cast and decorated brass hilt for over $3,000 on the basis that it had a tiger-head pommel and "stripes" going down the handle (see https://www.faganarms.com/products/a...of-tipu-sultan, though a picture of the hilt is also attached). Though this katar is way more likely to have been owned by Tipu, it is at the same time entirely possible (I would argue, anyways,) that the koftgari artist that decorated it was simply a fan of waves.
Regardless though it certainly is quite a fine katar.

Additional factors would be the remarkably good condition the katar is in, given (specifically) how the koftgari decoration appears to have very few damages to it. There's also the fact that plenty of collectors/dealers see these items solely as art pieces, and as a result feel justified in spending exorbitant amounts of money on them in general (and an item with the "provenance" of being sold for so much means that it can be sold again - for the same price or higher - later on, should its owner ever need the money).

Thank you Nihl! I have seen the tipu swords before but did not make the connectionbto this katar.