sickles/ weapons of other country than India

[Billman]

Originally Posted by tom hyle

I am glad to see a trend on this forum progressing away from the tradition of arbitrarily misidentifying unkown blades as tourist/decorator pieces, BTW

Found these two images on Flikr a few days ago - labelled as vousge, a type of bill or pike, i.e. a pole arm, and thought to be 18th century... They are in a museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.... They are in fact French 'coupes-marc' (singular 'coupe-marc' - also known as a 'hache de chais') - a long handled knife from the Normandy/Britanny regions, used to cut up the 'marc', or residue, (known also as the 'moût' in some regions) of the cider presses. The protuberence on the back of the blade, often bearing the maker's stamp or 'poinçon', readily identifies these as from this part of northern France... Similar (and also axe shaped version - often mis-named as be-heading axes), are also found in the wine growing regions....

The shape of the blade varies widely from region to region.... for anyone interested in Franch tools, I would highly recommend the books of Daniel Boucard, published by Jean Cyrille Godefroy... A page from one of his books showing this tool can be found at: http://www.anciens-outils.com/page_hachesdechais.htm and another at http://img41.xooimage.com/files/4/7/...is-131bda9.jpg

But arms and weapons have greater value than mere agricultural tools.... The comparison picture is from the Musée du Vin (Wine Museum) in Paris, and shows some of the regional blade shapes... and two others with the maker's mark DU CHENE on the blade...