On the Origins of the so-called Berber Sabres

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Andrew

I'm always wary of assigning too much import to what anonymous museum curators put together in a given exhibit. Too often I think someone took a bunch of things they thought would look good together and put them all in a case...

Very well said Andrew!!
I have seen groupings of weapons lumped together completely incongruently by presumably responsible authorities, resulting in many of the unfortunate attributions that have plagued arms scholars for years. Case in point, the Calvert catalog "Spanish Arms and Armour" which perputuates these types of errors in a number of instances, especially the curious 'manople'.
Burton, in his "Book of the Sword" carries forth errors of Auguste Demmin (1877) and finally noted by Buttin in his work later published (1933).

The trophies/souveniers of one generation, often become grouped in estate sales by unknowledgable individuals and presumption, and classifications and provenance hopelessly lost. I have seen donations to European museums that piled African and even Asian weapons together, mostly in efforts at aesthetic or unusual groupings, leading more to identification travesties.

All the best,
Jim