4th December 2013, 11:46 PM | #1 |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 456
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Takouba with 4 fullers
The worst thing about spending time on this forum is that you see all sorts of cool things you can't afford. Specifically, I really took a liking to straight North African swords like the Takouba and Kaskara, and I decided to get a cheap one. Rather than going with E-bay and getting a tourist piece, I got this one off Oriental Arms. As you can see it's in pretty rough shape. One side has 4 fullers, the other side 3 and they're definitely ground not forged. It has the half moons on both sides, but rather than a face it just has a squiggle.
There are some faint striations on the edge towards the top which didn't come out in any of these pictures. There's a ding or two in the edge as well. The blade has good flex to it. The handle is raw metal, I assume it was encased in leather at some point, and it's stuffed with fabric. The sheath is pretty ratty, and the end of it is actually missing. The baldric is some sort of fabric, also in rough condition, and the d rings holding it in place look like rusty iron. Is there any way to date the blade or narrow down what ethnic group it originated from? It's obviously seen a hard life and there's not much left of it, but at least I'm reasonable sure it isn't a tourist piece. |
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