tulwar or talwar
 

I picked up three tulwars. I'm not familiar with these swords and would like to have some opinions and advice to clean them or not and how. Especially the first should be cleaned in my opinion. The grip shows some silverish inlays or remains of it and the blade has three copper dots and shows patina. When you clean this one the patina is gone but what might be underneath it?

the second tulwar
 

In my opinion a rather plain tulwar. Ideas or opinions on this one?

The third tulwar
 

This one has a rapier blade. Could this be a Firangi like Stone describes it in his book on page 229? The hilt is not a khanda type as far as I can see it. These three are strangers for me, but I do like them. Certainly the first and the third one.

Hi Henk, I would only clean this with steel wool and some penetrating oil.Any patches of stuborn rust might be scraped off with a blunt table knife,I would not use any abrasive paper, only as a last resort in small areas.Tim

Hi Henk , I'd be very leery of cleaning any of them .
Reason ?
The patina is extremely thick on all of these examples and I would fear that when cleaned they just wouldn't look 'right' .

I can't really explain what 'right' is it's a little too subjective .
Anyhow , my two cents worth . :)

Thanks Rick, I really apreciate your opinion. A good patina can show more than a completely cleaned item without any traces. Cleaning must have an extremely good reason and bring up something more valueble than the patina that shows the age of an item.

Henk, about the first tulwar you write that it has three copper dots. Am I correct when I guess that they are in a row?

You did a good buy, even when I don’t know what you paid. Especially the last one is interesting. Is it possible that you can take close up pictures of the hilts and the discs from above? While you are at it, why not take a few shots of the blades:)?

Congratulations on the find;).

I like the first one. The second one is also nice, but is way over re-sharpened, the blade looks strange. Call me mad but, the patina looks BEAUTIFUL! I would keep it as it is if I were you.

EDIT: One question, are the hilts loose? This issue is very common with tulwars, both new and antique.

Henk , the only thing I would check is if these blades have been varnished or lacquered ; if they have then I would think that removing the old applied finish would be acceptable .
Then I would apply Rennaisance Wax as a substitute .

As you probably know it was not unusual for collectors of earlier times to varnish or lacquer their pieces to prevent rusting .

They are all beauties .

IMO sharpening shows an active career for the sword .

Henk,

Is the straight-bladed example edged on both sides or is it a "back sword", edged only on one? Is it sharpened at all?

The tulwar hilt is not condusive to the thrust with a straight blade, as it doesn't permit the wrist extension necessary. I'm puzzled by the mating of what appears to be a thrusting blade with this form of hilt.

Thank you for sharing these with us, Henk. :)

Mind you it's pretty dandy for a backhanded thrust of the sort that can be sent around a sheild.

Gentlemen,

First I want to thank you all for your input. I was struck by these three tulwars and the kukri in the box. The other stuff was with it.

Jens,

For your information, and it is not allowed to mention prices, when I devide the total amount to the 10 pieces I bought I could tell the Mrs. that it was a bargain :D

Please give me some time to make the pictures you're required. Maybe tonight I have some time to spare or tomorrow. But I will make them.

The three copper dots are in a row. From the first dot to the last one, you can divide the distance in three sections. The first dot is under the hilt in the middle of the blade. The second one is two/third lower towards the tip against the back of the blade and the last one is on one/third distance from the previous one in the tip. The first and the last dot are visible on the pics.

This one is certainly my favorite, just as the third one is.

M.Carter,

The hilts are not loose. Only the cap from the second one was conected with a wedge in the pommel. That wedge is gone so i have to try to make a substitute. Maybe a metal one. That's the only point, but all three are battle ready.

Rick,

All three the blades have been sharpened. The first and the second one on the entire edge. The third one only the point. Just like it was used for fenching. The patina of the first and the second one is "original" and no spurs of varnish or lacquer. The third one is lacquered and should be cleaned. Any ideas what the most safest way is to remove the lacquer? I really wish to threat them as babys.

Last but not least, Andrew,

The straight bladed one is edged on both sides. As mentioned above it is sharpened on the tip.
These kind of blades with such a hilt were called "Firangi" according to Stone.
But these weapons used to have a khanda hilt. If i compare a khanda hilt to a tulwar hilt, the main difference is the spike at the end of the pommel. If i look to the end of the pommels of the first and the second one, they are finished off very well with a round knob. It looks to me that some idio... took a metallsaw to cut off the large end because it didn't fit into his ....??? :confused: Aparently the sawing work is finished off with a hammer to get rid of the sharp edges that remains after the sawing. I will also try to catch this in a picture. In my opinion this one is really abused by some ........

It's my pleasure to share these ones with you and learn about it.

No doubt. But wouldn't you rather have a curved saber for that particular thrust?

As I understand it, "firangi" refers to any foreign-bladed Indian sword. If this is, indeed, a European rapier blade, then it would certainly be a firangi.

It just seems like an unlikely mating of handle/blade. :)

You're right Andrew. When I quote Stone: "FIRANGI, FARANG, PHIRANGI. Literally the Portugese, or foreigner. A Mahratta cut-and-thrust, straight bladed sword. The blades were either imported from Europe by the Portugese, or made in imitation of them. Broadsword blades with either three or four shallow grooves were the most common, but rapier blades were also used.The hilts were of the khanda type, with broad guards, and disk pommels with curved spikes on them. Most of the blades are of the 17th century, though some are of the 16th."

Hmm, yes well Andrew, I think it is a yes and a no. True that farangi refers to Indian swords with a foreign blade – and this blade surely is foreign – but farangis have khanda hilts, not tulwar hilts, and this is, I think a special tulwar hilt on top of it all, we will see when we get more pictures. What makes a farangi a farangi? Is it the blade or the blade and the hilt? I think we can agree on that a khanda hilt with a foreign blade is a farangi, and maybe this one is too, but it is most unusual to see a blade like this with an unusual tulwar hilt – is this a farangi? Maybe you are right, but I am not quite convinced at the moment.

Jens,

Here are the pics of the "firangi" to give this one a name. Is this what you mean and good enough to see something? I'd better first ask before i launch the other pics i made. If not I have to try to make better ones but it isn't easy with flashlight and i'm not a prof.

I am glad I am not the only one confused on the definition of farangi. I have used the term as Andrew has stated, that being a straight bladed broad sword or backsword, usually with the Hindu basket but not necessarily. I think Andy has posted one with a rapier blade on SFI, for lack of any other term I would also call it a Farangi.


Jeff

Jens, I think you've hit on the source of some of my confusion relating to Henk's sword. The illustration from Stone's posted by Henk gives me some consolation: most of those straight-bladed, khanda-hilted swords make a bit more sense to me, as they appear to be more cut and thrust than Henk's example. I would also note that the downward tilt of the pommel would permit better wrist extension than a standard tulwar hilt. Better, but still not something I'd relish. :)

Hi Andrew,

I hate to be a stickler but I think you mean wrist abduction. I personally don't think the tulwar pomel affects this but that is just my opinion. :)

Jeff

The tulwar's pommel is a pain. It gets in the way of cutting (hurts your wrist veeery bad), and thrusting.

I do, indeed, mean abduction. Thanks for the clarification, and the illustrations! :)

This is largely all my opinion as well. However, I've never held a tulwar that didn't cause discomfort and pain when trying to abduct my wrist.

You guys must have pretty large hands because I find no problems with the way a tulwar handles . :confused:

I think the disk is meant to encourage the hand to combine a draw cut with a downward cut . The caveat here is that I am no swordsman but I do believe that the disc is there for a purpose rather than a fashion statement and it must have worked or it would have been quickly abandoned .

I've been using an old Rajastani wootz tulwar with a 'flattened' knucklebow as my test sword .

Hi Rick,

Your observations are similar to mine. I find the large pommel prevents the saber from being pulled from your hand with the draw. My hands are slightly larger than average for the modern hand. I think the answer lies in the grip. The majority of the grip strength lies in the thumb and the first two fingers, the third finger (ring finger) helps but is not essential. There is no point in completely closing the small finger. Now try cuttting and see if this decreases your grip, as well as still hurts. Again only my personal opinion.

Jeff

I have come to the conclusion that perhaps tulwar pommels are shaped like that due to swordsmanship style? Can anyone please confirm this? Perhaps it was useful in Gatka. Maybe those who practise gatka have a distinctive way of holding the sword.

I do have some jumbo-sized mitts. :o

Rick, have you tried to abduct your wrist as you would for a thrust with a straight bladed weapon? Doesn't that disc make it uncomfortable, if not painful?

Absolutely; like, for instance, a tulwar. I was just clarifying that the tulwar hilt is not bad for thrusting, just bad for one type of thrusting; the one that's commonly and incorrectly treated as the only one in European training.
Interesting the diversity of opinion on the obstructionism or nonobstructionism of the tulwar pommel. If the grip fits your hand (this is after all important), and the pommel hurts you it's because you're using motions meant for/learnt from other swords. you don't snap your wrist when cutting with a tulwar as you can with many swords; you can't. You have to slash; it will not permit a hack. This may be meant to enforce proper cutting for greater affect, but also may foster a technique less liable to damage the wrist and/or lose the sword when cutting from horseback.

On tulwar hilt vs khanda hilt, AFAIK the "spike" (it's really a handle for left hand flips and long ones can be used in blocks though I don't know if that's traditional) is not the only difference, and like some others is not universal (ie some tulwars do have a long "spike".). There is the grip, curved and cylindrical on the firangi, straight and swelled on the tulwar (yes, another nonuniversal). There is the flat plate quard, with its boatlike upward curve that seems greater than the cupping affect of a tulwar's quillons, and the quillons under the plate, with their resemblance to the ganga of kris sundang (and often with baca like features). There are the superlong and often rivetted down lagnets, which are probably the biggest difference. There is the angle of the pommel; more often more forward on firangi or khanda than on tulwar.

Gosh , I go out to dinner and I come back to multi forum mayhem . ;)

IMO a tulwar is used for a thrust in a bent arm position with the elbow as the main joint used . You do not see very many tulwars IIRC with that acute of a point , and the tulwar is not used as an epee or smallsword would be . I think that it is more for an Indian style of swordsmanship (draw cut) as Mark mentions than any Western style .
[addendum the tulwar I have been trying moves with is practically straight]
http://www.oriental-arms.com/item.php?id=1048
As a side note or a parallel example if you will ; I have an old Moro multi waved kris . When I first got it I looked down the length of the blade and saw that it had a slight twist . At first I thought it was an inadvertent flaw by the panday , then after playing around with it I came to the realization that it had been put in on purpose so that the angle of the cut was naturally adjusted for the wavy style of blade .

Yes, I take a medium glove so that would mean that my mitts are smaller than average , but I have really long fingers . :D

lol.

I'm not at all debating the efficacy or even the function of the tulwar hilt. Once, I believed the quillion should be fingered, but someone (perhaps Ruel) disabused me of this with well-crafted argument to the contrary. I welcome such attempts.

My only real "problem" here is with the mounting of a straight thrusting blade on a handle which is not only not optimal for the thrust, but limits it significantly. Slashing, slicing, drawing, even hacking or "circular" (i.e. not linear) thrusting, with a tulwar hilt? Yes. Rapier work? No thanks. ;)


BTW, that is really a beautiful sword, Rick. Congrats. :)

Hi Henk, I did not expect you to tell the price, but if you could convince you wife that it was cheap, it must have been quite a barging:p.


A farangi is described in two ways, either as a sword with a foreign blade and a khanda hilt, or like an (Indian) sword with a foreign blade – I think it should be understood that the sword has a khanda hilt, although it is not said, just like you see it on the pictures in Stone and other places. The word farangi has a broad meaning, but when it comes to the sword Henk shows I would prefer to call it a tulwar hilted sword with a straight foreign blade. In this way everyone will have an idea of what it looks like, even if they have not seen it. If you on the other hand call it a farangi everyone will think of a sword with a khanda hilt. Maybe you should also have a look in Tirri’s book page 331 figure 251, and while we are at it, what about the tulwar hilted maces, the hit would have been more like chopping than draw and cut, but maybe the hilt was bigger when they had a mace in the other end, rather than a blade.

The sword is unusual/interesting in more than one way. To see a rapier blade with a tulwar hilt is most unusual, when you to this add that where foreign blades were mostly used, most of the hilts had a hand guard, but this one does not. I also find the ‘bulb’ on the grip unusual, almost like the one in Tirri’s book page 328 figure 249C (the second from left), although the one on Henk’s sword is a bit more pointed. All this means that it could have come from within a very big area, as some things point in one direction, other in another direction. The fact that the spike has been sawn off is a puzzle to me, although I doubt that it can have been very long, not on such a hilt, it is likely to have been rather short and pointed.

With regards to Henk's rapier blade I must admit to confusion also . :confused:

Possibly it is a case of necessity being the mother of invention i.e. here's a rapier blade in a foreign culture with a different style of swordsmanship so it got the traditional hilt and was used (effectively or not) for that different style .
Probably not a great marriage of cultures but still potentially lethal .

As for that wootz tulwar ; it had been sitting in Artzi's inventory for quite some time . A nice light and well tempered sword very reasonably priced .

I can understand how you'd come to this conclusion, but you were more likely correct at first; I know of no intentional making or using of twisted centrally bevelled cutting blades. (some chisel ground blades have peculiar geometries that could be called twisted that centralize the edge. Many African "Offset" blades have a slight twist, always of the kind that would occur as a result of the forging of the offset, and IMHO incidental, but others claim it has to do with spinning javelins; the offset in African swords seems to descend from spears) First, many old swords acquire a slight twist and/or a cast(sometimes with an e at the end; a bend, not the same as a sett, which is a bend acquired by the blade after hardening, from mechanical forces) in the hardening; in fact ones that I would characterize as having none are quite rare (possible exception for obsessive Japanese cutlers and their after-hardening straightening by both twisting the metal and by grinding). I remember a machete I sold to Carter Rila that comes about as close as any; it is remarkably "true", and it does have a very very slight twist. The following things seem to promote the twist: uneven cooling in the quench; curvature of the blade; waves especially. I believe that in forging kris including kris sundang, it is usually the intent that all the waves conform to a continuous line or curve, crest and trough (not neccessarily all the same height; often tapering curves.....), and all in one plane. This is not that often seen perfectly executed, because it is difficult, both in initial forging and in hardening. IMO spring tempered swords are a bit more liable to this twisting, perhaps because it's harder to evenly cool the whole blade than just the edge; perhaps because the cutlers were more able to straighten a soft-bodied sword. I probably should add that I am a lifelong visual artist who got into a serious argument with his elementary school art teacher because she wasn't able to grasp that we see a straight wall as curved (strange how people can't see this until you explain it to them as the inevitable result of perspective that it is; understanding seems to affect the human eye in interesting ways), and that in the course of martial arts study, woodworking, much of it fancy-fancy, and test/practice cutting I have developed a really really picky eye for things like "flat" and "straight"; probably far beyond the ordinary day to day margins of error they are allowed in vernacular use. Much as with the word "master" I am personally pleased and fairly satisfied with a level of perfection far below what I would call actually straight and true, but my satisfaction does not depend on thinking otherwise.
A good hilter will try to allow/compensate for blade twist in the hilt, to try to centralize the cutting edge as well as possible. A twist in a cutting blade is a serious problem, but very common; perfection has not been the standard.
I'm not saying what you think you see is impossible, but it seems to me it would be very unusual. Whether I believe it or not should be of no great importance to you, especially as I don't know that sword, and haven't examined it, and thus don't of course even know in a precise diagramatic/etc. way what the structure you're describing looks like; may be too subtle for photos? Having each luk in a slightly different plane means each, as it is drawn thru the cut, and hits with its individual saw-tooth impact, is slightly out of line with the previous cut, and instead of deepening it as a "true" blade would do, is hampered in this by the competing factor that what it's really trying to do is to make a new, parrallel cut; it is better to deepen the cut that started things. Also, if the initial impact of the cut is with the angle of the edge off from the plane of motion, some of your energy is wasted in blunt force and vibration; your cut is less effective, and such off-angle cutting can even snap out a fine edge (though kris sundang usually does have a fairly heavy convex edge in my experience; this is what the bad hilt did to my "Me fecit Salingen" sword; it's edge was a mass of nicks from a blade or blades and of torn out pieces from such cuts, rendered crooked in this case not by the untruness of the blade, but by a twisty out-of-plane hilt); a kid at work did it to one of our knives when he made an excessively sweeping cut and hit the hard plastic paper towel dispenser.....) when cutting into hard, stiff things like bone.

Interesting point about the maces; I guess we'll have to look at some; I know there are khanda hilted maces, too.

Gentlemen,

I'm very happy with your input and very satisfied with the fact that my sword brought such an interesting discussion.

Unfortunately I don't possess the book of Terri. But it is the first book in my list of desired ones.

I feel sure that Mr. Tirri will forgive me, but unfortunately the book does not say from where the hilt is.

By turned up do you mean angled forward, or dished upwards at the edge? I've seen both, and either allows a greater freedom of wrist motion than the flat discs. In general, it is my feeling that tulwar hilts, and many other old hilts, were meant to cup the hand fairly tightly.