Teodor,

Both of us are handicapped by the quality of picture, but no matter how carefully I looked, I could not see the heterogeneous structure of the walrus ivory. Looks old, dried and randomly cracked elephant ivory to me. Regretfully, none of us here can hold it in our hands and make an informed opinion.

You are completely correct on one point: the handguard. All Omani ones ( that I know) were iron, whereas Moroccan ones were made of brass or iron, and were less massive. Just like the French one. On the other hand, Moroccan ones had their handled made out of wood, horn or ( the luxurious ones) turtle shell. I cannot recall any utililizing ivory. Do you know of any?

I looked at your example from Hales' book. True enough. But the older and higher-class Moroccan have the same configuration as the Omani examples, including the protruding " comb" on the back surface of the pommel, whereas the low-end handles from both localities were all wooden and without it.

I think that without well-documented and fully reliable provenance we might have major difficulties attributing the French one. And with rather active trade connections around the Islamic areal, we just cannot be sure.
One thing we know: the attribution and the provenance by the dealer are totally unreliable; the Caucasian part of it is plainly wrong, and the Mysore part of it is based on a misspelled name of Tipoo and nothing else.

In short, a typical conundrum familiar to all collectors of Oriental weapons....


As an aside: Elgood in his recent book demonstrates quite a lot of blades from the Jodhpur Armory marked with illustrious Rajput names. All is well until he dryly mentions that the names were added by the order of the first director of the Jodhpur museum:-))

Ivory on Maghrebi nimcha hilts is indeed rare. In my pictures archive I found one that is currently exhibited in a museum in Israel. There is another one which is currently for sale, so I cannot post it, but a basic google search would probably produce it. Both are elephant ivory and not walrus ivory like the French sword (it looks like walrus to me, and I could be wrong).

Anyway, we have diverged quite a bit from your sword, and yours has a hilt that is Moroccan without a doubt.

Well, the French one was once sold at Bonhams.
They attributed it ( tentatively) to Oman

Whereas Hermann Historica sold it as Moroccan...

Who are we to believe?


https://www.hermann-historica.de/en/...nimcha/l/31000

None of them because it's Algerian.
And Teodor is right it's walrus...

:) :)

Yes, now I am certain that Teodor is right: it is walrus ivory as attested by Bonhams and Hermann Historica appraisers who had an opportunity to actually hold it. Both Teodor and myself, not being able to do so, were cautious and admitted the possibility of error. But, yes: Teodor was able to see something that I did not and I freely admit that he was correct.

As to the origin of the hilt: professional appraisers with ample opportunities to consult real specialists attributed it to Morocco or Oman. You needed just a brief look at a picture to dismiss their opinions and unhesitantly pronounce the hilt Algerian.

Isn’t it a bit presumptious on your part?

When it comes to the hilt, if you trace out the contours of the grip and the guard, the closest match in terms of pure shape is the group of nimchas that usually have a hilt with tortoise shell and metal. From what I have read, the Algerian attribution is based on 4 swords in the Real Armeria that were taken as trophies in 1732 during the siege of Oran. Similar swords may have been used along the entire Barbary Coast, but we know for sure that they were definitely in use in what is nowadays Algeria in the early 18th century. Hence why earlier in this thread I posted an opinion that the walrus hilt is most likely of Algerian origin.

The further back we go in time, the less we know with absolute certainty. The same applies to auction house appraisers, museum curators and authors. We all examine the available information, compare examples, and then form an opinion. The conclusions we reach are not always right, often because we simply do not know enough. But I believe we all like the mystery aspect or else we would be collecting regular military patterns and not ethnographic arms that are all more or less unique creations.

I honestly am still not entirely sure what to make of this sword. It is certainly very interesting - the hilt is of an old form, but from an unusual material (for the type, otherwise walrus ivory was quite popular in the Ottoman Empire), the blade attached to the hilt by what appears like a sandwich construction at the base, so almost certainly not original to the hilt, and then with an inscription that may or may not have anything to do with Tipu Sultan of Mysore. On top of that, it appears to have traded hands at auction quite a few times lately. I see why Kubur chose to post it here - it has a straight multi-fullered blade on a hilt that is most likely from the Maghreb, but I do not think the two swords have all that much in common.

Sooner or later, there will be a sword posted online with a blade similar to yours in terms of the shape and fullering, and when that happens, hopefully whoever notices it will remember this thread and will post it here.

You are right : we diverged ( but isn’t it a nice aspect of a free discussion?).
To summarize the certainties: the hilt on mine is Moroccan and a structurally similar blade on the “auction” one is Indian as suggested by wootz.
The rest is still a mystery.
Well, in another 10 or 20 years we may finally learn something new to figure it all out.
Till then let’s keep an open mind, cheerful disposition and positive attitude:-)