Collectors’ Dilemma: Selling the Stories We Once Bought

[Jim McDougall]

Turkoman, very well said, and I totally agree. As you note, material which presents all the details and criteria and systematically explains the process of researching and moving toward a plausible solution.

It is often frustrating when an item is presented for identification or a question asked regarding some element, and the reply is a simple sentence with no supportive detail. While of course the answer is laconically given, little is learned.

For me, it is about learning from the weapons over simple descriptions in order to buy and sell, but Tim is right, superfluous embellishment should raise red flags in those circumstances. It is incumbent on the buyer to do his homework and be aware of just what he is buying, while the seller has a responsibility to represent the weapon being sold prudently.

Going to the presentation of weapons of great historical importance in exhibitions, museums and collection catalogs, it is much the same, perhaps even more so, as these are the references we all rely on in our studies of historic arms.

This linked article in OBJET.art is brilliant and offers important details in the study of the weapons of the Mughal ruler Tipu Sultan, whose defeat at Seringpatam in India by the British was a pivotal event in the history of the evolution of the British Raj. Naturally the weapons of this flamboyant Mughal ruler became highly desirable as souvenirs, then high status collectibles.

The detail of the character of the tiger, the leitmotif of Tipu Sultan, seen on one of the examples shown is seen as clearly from a later period, and that the weapon inadvertently acquired and displayed in a prominent museum after exhibitions reveals the 'story' being bought. The presentation of why this is likely the case is pure forensics, which in my opinion is the true wonder in arms study.

I have always heard the axiom, 'buy the weapon, NOT the story'.

In our many years of discussions here, we have often had such rigorous interaction, and the knowledge base of the many who have contributed here in those discussions has been phenomenal. I know that I am ever grateful to all of them for what I have learned from these interactions, as I am sure others who have participated here have felt.

To see other venues using this approach is wonderful, and enhances the advance of the serious study of arms history, aesthetics and related topics is fantastic.