Three Kindjals - Why Armenian or Cossack?
 

These are three beauties:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=6532444564
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=6532446263
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=6532448381
I know little about these. Can anyone comment?

-d

Cause I'm lazy I'm not gonna check the references, so:
I can't understand why the first one is armenian - it's very uncharacteristic for armenian work, which is defined as:

a. Southern caucasian hilt (3 screws or for older ones - fat 2 screws solid hilt, with round coin like thingies under the screws - however "thin" 2 screws with coin like thingies would be more dagestani)
b. Gold koftgari around the fuller on the blade.
c. The blade is most likely a little bit to the large side for old pieces, usually one off-centered fuller, or two fullers in the center, roundish convergence towards the end, however there are a lot of other possibilities (generally everything is very similar to georgian kindjals).

Finally to be determined to be armenian vs. georgian it either have to have armenian letters or typically iranian/armenian motiffs. One has to remember that most of post 1850 georgian kindjals were made by armenians.

The first one has can be even turkish (I did see some georgian scabbard with copper, and some engravings on copper, usually late 19th century, and have seen some similar turkish work, even through "classical" turkey would be really different), and in my (most likely wrong ?) opinion is not armenian.

The second one can be armenian, but to me it looks that such conclusion is being made in extreme haste, and other possibilities should've been considered. The photos are to bad for me to make a judgement what it really is.The upper part of the hilt can suggest anything, including Dagestan.

The third one is cossack because it has a russian double headed eagle on it. Is it really cossack, or is it russian made, or it's a local master - I would vote for a russian made.

P.S. I'm sorry to say but I disliked all of them.
There was a very high quality armenian kindjal on ebay recently:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

but the owner already removed the pictures, and I have mine on a different computer.

Sorry for the grammar in the previous letter - it gets really bad when I'm in a hurry.

In short I would not trust a single word said by a seller you don't know on "this kindjal is a great example of ... craftsmanship". They've tried to sell me a "chechen kindjal by great Mudunov" (Mudunov owned a second class osethian company), "khevsurian satevari" that for unknown reasons was signed in arabic and had very characteristic atagi motiff (and the seller is actually a very honest and reliable guy, he just does not know better).

They are not crooks, they just really don't know, and to be honest - in most cases with "generic" kindjals it can be really hard to make a call Georgia/Armenia or sometimes even Dagestan/Georgia, Chechnya/Georgia can be even worse.

There are some agreements, that since Tiflis was the biggest kindjal making place in Southern Caucasus, the Transcaucasian blades are georgian by default, just like circassian blades are dagestani unless definitely proven circassian :).

Hi Rivkin,

Thanks. The 2nd and 3rd you seem to have some level of confidence in saying they are this or that, but not the first one. Why? What is your initial impression as to its actual origin?
-d

The first is strange. It seems to be very short - too short (boy's kindjal ?), but the hilt is disproportionally large. This is the first problem - what is this kindjal ? A weird product of prohibition against wearing large kindjals, adopted in a few cities ? The second problem is copper as a material for parts of the scabbard - not the most usual choise. Especially for small kindjals like this one. I had a somewhat similar georgian scabbard, but the engravings look weird to me. I've seen a similar turkish scabbard for a shashka (another weirdo).

So overall this guy is a weirdo.

So it is, thanks for explaining. What do you make of those four cicular depressions on the top coppoer fitting? They look deliberate, but for what?

-d

I think it's just an ornament.