Interesting takouba for discussion

[Iain]

Time to revive this thread as I finally received the sword.

Here's the little writeup I did for my website...

A very interesting piece acquired at auction in Sweden. The hilt assembly is brass, heavy duty in construction and well balanced. The pommel is in an old style, very well formed, slight bend at one edge. Guard features interesting decorative motif detailed via pointillism. The entire assembly is covered in a brown substance, possibly paint. I am not sure if it is an original application or a later attempt at conservation. The layer is quite thick.

The base of the blade features an odd assemble with a set of riveted plates supporting the blade at the shoulder. These plates sandwich the blade, rather than the blade terminating when it meets the plates. Therefore the plates appear to be reenforcement rather than a repair to an older blade. The style is reminiscent of some Indian mountings.

The blade itself is well made, good quality half moon stamps and well forged fullers. Flex is excellent and the edge very keen. Tip exhibits extreme sharpening, obviously the blade was in use for a long, long time.

Overall, a good example of a non-Tuareg takouba with several unique characteristics.

I uploaded most of the pics here, there's a couple more here: http://takouba.org/takouba13/