Old Kaskara

[Edster]

Jim, well argued response, but I'd like to make a counterpoint.

In a 2006 post JeffD showed a kaskara with the three Kull marks, two of which were copper filled. Images attached below.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ghlight=Cronau

The fly is of the distinctive Kull design and distinctively struck. Who would doubt that this is not Kull factory struck? Ariel's mark is the same if not identical, but dirty. The cross & orb and standing cat on both may or may not be factory. (Was all three defining marks always/mostly/often placed on Kull export blades?)

We agree that someone somewhere at some time filled the orb-cross & cats with copper, but not the fly. I would accept somewhere in the Trans-central Africa trade network in the mid to late 19th C.

Best regards,
Ed

[Jim McDougall]

Point well taken Ed. On Ariel's sword this 'fly' is configured and in the same position as the Kull shop must have consistently applied, and there is no doubt this is a European blade. If you note the area where the legs are typically distinguishable it is solid on Ariel's...…..which seemed unusual...but not a 'deal breaker'. If it is simply 'dirty' then understandable, but I had not seen that possibility.

I don't think I had suggested the fly was copper filled, at least at cant see where I did, but my writing is often tangled.

In conversations some years ago, we had discussed the possibility that Solingen might have had some business producing blades specifically for the market in North Africa. In this case, it seems possible that these spurious markings copper filled could have been applied by the Kull shop. It is curious that Kull marked blades in North Africa have these lion and cross and orb marks....and why do they appear on takoubas c. 1916.
Yet here we have a kaskara…..a quite different context......with the kull mark and the same copper filled markings.

If Kull ceased in 1860, then these blades either lingered in the Saharan sphere for the next 50 years, or someone else was using the stamp and process of copper filled lion and cross and orb .

That was my idea in pondering this unusual situation with these markings. The lion was a favored symbol in the Sahara, as was the cross and orb, so these would understandably be added to blades. Such combinations were atypical in Europe, so the idea of the blades being European intended and ending up in North Africa seems unlikely.

The idea that some mysterious entrepot in North Africa was almost uniformly applying these copper filled markings and on exclusively Kull blades seems a bit far fetched......but of course not impossible.

If Solingen was indeed sending blades specifically to North Africa, that is the thing that many of us have wondered and hoped to find records of in Solingen. However thus far, there has been no success I know of in finding any such record there, and virtually the only references we have are the histories by Cronau and Weyersburg. These do not note any such record as far as I have known so we remain at square one.

[Iain]

There is no doubt in my mind the marks were applied within Germany. Keep in mind that we are talking about a process which involved a lot of manual labor still, marks were not invariably struck to the same depth or precision.

The fly looks to be dirty to me, also, it is simply not technically possible to strike the mark after the blade had been heat-treated. This would require reheating the blade and destroying the temper. This is why native marks applied to European blades are engraved, they are not stamped.

There is no mystery why these blades turn up in kaskara and takouba, the trade in blades to both Sudan and the wider Sahel we know flowed mainly through Egypt and then, at least for many centuries, Borno was the key distribution point.

The copper fills turn up not only on Kull blades and conversely not all kull blades had them applied. Here's another http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22651 that is very high quality but a slightly different configuration, perhaps produced a bit earlier.

I think its also imporant to remember that there will always be minor variations in the position of stamps, depth of the marks etc. The same can be observed on a multitude of munitions grade blades including schiavonas that were also mass produced.

[ariel]

Just finished on E-Bay: a kaskara that is virtually identical to mine.
Both the " cat" and the "globus cruciger" marks were filled with molten brass and the excesses were sanded away
1. There is some residual brass outside the outline of both marks , kind of unremoved spill-overs.
2. The same is true for the "cat" mark, but in addition there are small round protrusions , like bubbles from the bottom of the mark that had risen to the surface or just pieces of dirt.
Interestingly, the same is seen on Ed's last example.

The "fly" mark was left infilled ( also just like "Ed's). I would guess that structure of the mars was too complex and crowded to guarantee good definition after sanding.

I think that strongly suggests local filling of the existing marks with molten brass rather than inlaying them with brass wire.

[Iain]

Originally Posted by ariel

Just finished on E-Bay: a kaskara that is virtually identical to mine.
Both the " cat" and the "globus cruciger" marks were filled with molten brass and the excesses were sanded away
1. There is some residual brass outside the outline of both marks , kind of unremoved spill-overs.
2. The same is true for the "cat" mark, but in addition there are small round protrusions , like bubbles from the bottom of the mark that had risen to the surface or just pieces of dirt.
Interestingly, the same is seen on Ed's last example.

The "fly" mark was left infilled ( also just like "Ed's). I would guess that structure of the mars was too complex and crowded to guarantee good definition after sanding.

I think that strongly suggests local filling of the existing marks with molten brass rather than inlaying them with brass wire.

Agreed, I have always thought these were poured, rather than using the latten method.

[ariel]

Sorry. Wrong thread.