Origins of this yatagan.
 

Since this yatagan is now listed as being "sold" I was wondering if any forum member has an idea of were this yatagan may have come from. I can not remember seeing a scabbard like this one before.

Off hand the Balkans.

No I don't think.
Not all the Yatagan are from the Balkans.
What make you think that?
It's a very strange yatagan...

Unfortunately there are not a lot of images but it is strange looking, I have gone through a lot of images online and that I have saved but I can not find anything like it, it is large and has some interesting details like the notches carved into the ears of the hilt and a stylized star and crescent on the scabbard chape.

I have seen many yataghans from Turkey and other places besides the Balkans, I agree.

However, one of the classic signs of Balkan manufacture is the form of the hilt "ears" - when large like these are and in this form, they are more than not from the Balkans. Pieces from mainland Turkey exhibit much smaller "ears" if you can even call them that.

The one exception seems to come from Sarayevo where there is a form without "ears" at all, but more of a form of pistol grip.

One other note, the mounts on the top and bottom of the scabbard look more European to me, though close ups pictures would help.

i will agree that even for a Balkan example, this one is a little strange or unusual.

My first thought was Balkins as well but not for any particular reason other than the scabbard, but once I started looking around I could not find a similar example.

It is possible that the scabbard is a later replacement. I base this on the style of workmanship. If so this might explain some of the questions regarding the scabbard.

Certainly the stone on top next to the hilt is a later addition. Traditionally Ottomans did not place one there (and it would fall of anyway) and there is the issue of the style of stone setting which is more modern and not traditionally Ottoman.

I think if you look around enough you can find stones mounted just about anywere on a yatagan, but I agree with the type of setting, it is not what you would expect to see on an Ottoman weapon. You are probably right about the scabbard being a replacement, the style should give some clue to its origin but I can not remember seeing anything similar even on non-yatagan swords.

The wooden grip are clearly modern replacement.

The scabbard looks good to me.

I don't agree at all, many examples on the web...

The stone on the sword in question is faceted, which implies, to me at any rate, a (relatively) modern origin. Its setting seems consistent with the rest of the fittings on the hilt.

I still have not seen anything similar to this yatagan, here are some additional pictures. 28 inches long.

I like your yatagan, the date on the blade is 1825.
Is the central part of the scabbard silver?

Congrat!!

Kuber, thanks for the info.

It seems to be a silver tone in the middle area.

In the last set of pics, the fourth from below, scabbard fitting: isn't there a half-moon and a star?

To me it looks like a half moon and star, sort of stylized. The tip of the scabbard looks like a fish head, it reminds me of the balkan style scabbard tip.

This yatagan is similar in some ways, the blade has gold marking on one side and silver on the other, the scabbard ends are similar as is the grip which may be wood, it is the closest I have seen.

This is probably the least helpful comment. But when in it's scabbard, it looks like a fish...just sayin'.

It's not crazy at all as a lot of Ottoman scabbards have a terminal with a fish head or sea monster head. Just note that the double tip is maybe a symbol of the zulfikar...very common amongst arm makers in the Balkans...

Thanks for the close ups. Now I see that this is truly more unusual than I originally thought. Though still leaning Balkan, it now does not seem as Balkan as I thought now that I see these later picture close ups.

Regarding the 2nd example, what region does it come from in the Ottoman Empire?

Also I agree with Kubur regarding the fish/monster scabbard finial. Quite common on Ottoman yataghans, both on sword and dagger styles.

The one with a silver handle has round non-striated red stones ( corals?) .
I recall that Elgood mentioned it as a specific sign of manufacture in Foca.

Thanks to everyone who commented.

Is this the yatagan you mean (Regarding the 2nd example, what region does it come from in the Ottoman Empire?), if so it is from the Met.


Ottoman (Anatolian or Balkan) yatagan / yataghan, dated 1802–3, steel, silver, gold, coral, Length 29 in. (73.66 cm) Length of blade, 23 1/8 in. (58.72 cm), Wt. 3 lb. 8 oz. (1588 g). Met Museum. The yatagan was popular throughout the Ottoman Empire. It is distinguished by a single-edged blade that curves slightly inward and by a hilt with no guard and two flared wings at the pommel.

I am sorry but am I the only one here who feels we are debating late 20th century (at best) fittings? Referring to the yataghan starting this thread and the one in post 18, not the Foca examples of course.

Teodor

Theodor,
IMHO, you might be correct re. wooden handle and scabbard but the blade and metal handle fittings ( again, IMHO) seem to be old.
I am wondering whence it came to the market. I have seen so many crude and thoughtless renovations from Bulgaria....

Anything is possible when it comes to such items, do you have a particular reason for thinking that this is recent work, have you seen similar examples?

The engraving on both blades and the hilts seem to be quite similar in my opinion.

Ariel already summed it up nicely: while the bolster and the hilt band may be original to the blades, the wooden hilts and the scabbards are most likely modern. The material on the hilt is wrong, which is a result of traditional materials such as walrus ivory or dark horn being hard to obtain. And the style of the decoration is way off as well: it looks like a modern artist's own interpretation, as opposed to period craftsmen who usually repeated a few motifs, found across a wide range of surviving specimens. Finally, the workmanship of the scabbard metal parts is too crude to believe it could have passed the standards of the esnafs (guilds) back in the day.

Now, this does not suggest any attempt to deceive. I just consider these to be a modern attempt at restoration.

Teodor

P.S. Ariel is correct that there is a multitude of "artists" who restore old weapons in Bulgaria, with results varying in quality and appearance. I am also sure that Bulgaria is not unique in this regard. I can provide examples, but I do not feel modern replicas should be the focus of these fora.

I do not think anyone here will object to examples that can be learned from being posted.

What makes my antennae twitching is the apparently different metals of the bolster parts and the scabbard fittings, the clumsiness of the scabbard's mouth ( the real things are almost in line with the handle and not almost twice as thick as here) and the crudeness of the scabbard decoration. I am also very uneasy about the " fish head": usually it is almost like a separate detail, turned up and more like a "dolphin-head". This one is short, stubby and looks like a herring:-) .

The more I look at it, the less I like it.

But the blade is unquestionably real.

TVV is correct: Bulgaria is not the only one place in the world exporting benign or not so benign:-) "restorations". Simply I saw quite a lot of things on E-Bay coming from there with similar features and very similar wooden ears of a non-traditional contour.

Not considered these thoughts. Good for learning...........

Here are some examples of work from a contemporary restorer in Bulgaria: as you can see, a good craftsman with the right materials and good knowledge can indeed restore hilts to look very close to original. There is nothing wrong with this, just like there is nothing wrong with some of the work of forumites such as Battara, especially since to my knowledge none of the examples I am showing were ever meant to deceive anyone.

Good work as this is neither easy nor cheap, but of course, not every restorer out there is of the same skill level or integrity.

Sincerely,
Teodor

I have been watching Ebay auctions for years, and while I have seen many, many types of restorations were the person who made the handle and or scabbard etc did no better than a crude replica of the originals, this one is different than any other I have seen so if you or anyone here has an example that they think is similar work please post it for future reference.

There is a difference between a folkish restoration and a crude one, we all know that many weapons have been worked on at one time in their lives such as hilts, scabbards etc. Since I have seen this yatagan up close I can say that the work does not appear to be crude, someone knew what they were doing, maybe working within their abilitys but there is an artistic/folk art aspect to the work, certainly there was no attempt to fool anyone or it would not look like this.

If the work is new or much newer than it appears to be (which I know may be a possibility), someone was quite good at aging, when looked at closely nothing about it looks new, it could easily be 50 yrs old or 6 months old, which is why I posted it here, to see if any similar examples turn up.

Sorry, but I can't help you: I had never saved pics of what I viewed as obvious forgery.
But you might be right: it might have been an honest but semi-competent restoration with no intent to deceive. We will never know: there is no way we can read thoughts, be it those of an unnamed restorer, admiral Angria's or a Sikh "immortal" hurling his chakra at the enemy.
We can be reasonably sure that our dogs respect us, but the cats? Never.

There is a big difference between a "forgery" which implies an attempt to decieve and a restoration, no matter what the level of workmanship. As for yatagan, many original ones were not very elegant, some I have seen could be called crude when compaired to the ones made for wealthy individuals. There was a wide gap between the plain and elaborate examples.