VOC BLADES: A comprehensive look

[kai]

Hello Maurice,

Indeed very strange that most of the VOC blades are timor swords.
I don't know about Timor a lot, did they had own blacksmiths? If not that could be a reason for finding there so many trade blades.

This and the heavy VOC involvement makes it likely to find quite some of these there; I do seem to remember also examples from the greater Timor region (which may have been diffusing out of Timor proper).

However I have also seen VOC blades on old Preanger swords. Gavin had one nice gobang for sale with dated VOC blade recently.
Also I've seen a dated VOC blade on a Bandjermasin keris, and on a lanceblade from Borneo, which is in the Bronbeek museum now.

I believe these are quite widespread: I've seen several out of Sumatra and also central Java.

However all had not the right provenance to prove these really were old tradingblades from the VOC.

I am not sure what kind of provenance would be needed for an ethnographic combo to prove the point? Even when registered into any European nobility collection during the VOC period, this still could be a local "fake" of a possibly respected quality mark.

I know that real VOC swords are a kind of holy grail of Dutch/international military sword collectors and there certainly are a lot of fakes on the market.

However, ethnographic pieces don't enter those collecting circles AFAIK and among ethnographic collectors the VOC mark may be an interesting addition but it won't influence the usually moderate prices in such a way that convincing fakes would be economically lucrative. These are old and worn blades which doesn't make studying marks really easy. However, these are also not easy to apply fake stamps in recent times. It's not that we're looking at some sh***r c**l repros... Sorry, Jim, couldn't resist!

In most cases, experienced collectors are quite good at differentiating locally crafted blades (usually preferred) from European steel or trade blades. I'd suggest to compile all VOC-marked blades: Any VOC marks on blades apparently made from imported steel (including genuine VOC trade blades) should be carefully analyzed; very valuable would be marks from genuine VOC swords - there must be a few in Dutch musea? If we were to come across VOC marks on obviously locally crafted blades, these would make a good comparision, too! This may be a bit like reverse engineering - let's give it a try though!

Will try to load up some examples in the following days if time permits.

Regards,
Kai