Moroccan " pseudo-shashka"

[ariel]

[QUOTE=midelburgo]Nueva Granada, after independence, would rather buy items from England than from Spain. Actually, there exist customs list of what ships were carrying to the new country and bundles of machetes and machetes blades seem a common occurrence. From Great Britain usually.

I also have a Nueva Granada 1846 nimcha. I guess the machetes were ordered from the maker but never paid (Nueva Granada had continuous civil wars at the time) and the maker found an alternative market in North Africa QUOTE]



I am dubious about British origin. Brits usually manufactured blades of much higher quality and I would not expect them not to mark them with their own mark.

My guess it was a local Central American manufacture.

[TVV]

What I find interesting on the sword you are showing Ariel, is the hilt construction - two horn scales riveted to the tang instead of a solid horn piece with the tang peened on the pommel. And then there is also an unusual metal band over the gap in the scales, at least in the back and over the pommel.

The crude look suggests that either whoever made this was not very experienced, or was under some time pressure to deliver a usable sidearm, or both.

[midelburgo]

You can give a look to
https://books.google.es/books?id=CN8...rtados&f=false

If these pieces were so common as to find them traveling back to North Africa, there shall be a large amount of them still in Colombia.

I can expect the British Industry making all degrees of quality for export. Even that is good reason for not marking them with a valuable trade mark.

[ariel]

Teodor,

Professional Russian weapon historians and dilettante collectors alike put forward one explanation after another of the unusual construction of a Caucasian shashka. Among them is one exactly like yours: shashka is a a simplified version of a saber, kind of an ersatz weapon capable of being serviceable but without a time,- and money - requiring guard. You are also in a very good company of a splendid Latvian author of a book about history of knife fights, Denis Cherevichnik. He also thinks that Sardinian Leppa ( another guardless saber) was a weapon of poor men caring more about cost and simplicity than defensive functionality of guards.

Personally, I cannot exclude that shashka is a homage to the Ottoman Yataghan.

Kirill Rivkin recently published a video blog reviewing new books about Caucasian weapons. In it he mentions a monumental book by a Georgian researcher Mamuka Tsurtsumia that showed a very detailed and fully realistic picture of Georgian warriors wielding guardless sabers and reliably dated to 17 century. Regretfully, the book is in Georgian.
One of our Forumites, Mercenary, managed to unearth a Persian miniature dated to mid-18th century showing a battle of Persian and Afghani armies. Soldiers are shown armed with either “guarded” shamshirs or with guardless sabers ( shashkas?), both versions carefully drawn as such. These iconographic sources prove the existence of a shashka-like weapon 200-300 years earlier than the oldest examples known to us.

[ariel]

Midelburgo,

Thanks for the reference. Regretfully, I can’t read it and do not understand what you are referring to. Can you specify?

Interestingly, all 3 examples are marked with the same year and likely with the same die: see number “5”. Was the entire batch of blades shipped to Morocco?

I liked your theory about the Brits marking lousy blades with somebody else’s stamps. Ah, that perfidious Albion:-))))

[Jim McDougall]

[QUOTE=ariel]

Originally Posted by midelburgo

Nueva Granada, after independence, would rather buy items from England than from Spain. Actually, there exist customs list of what ships were carrying to the new country and bundles of machetes and machetes blades seem a common occurrence. From Great Britain usually.

I also have a Nueva Granada 1846 nimcha. I guess the machetes were ordered from the maker but never paid (Nueva Granada had continuous civil wars at the time) and the maker found an alternative market in North Africa QUOTE]



I am dubious about British origin. Brits usually manufactured blades of much higher quality and I would not expect them not to mark them with their own mark.

My guess it was a local Central American manufacture.

Actually British blades were not of especially high repute overall until Wilkinson advanced the quality just after mid 19th c. Even then there was always the ever present 'duel' with Solingen, and true, the British never used spurious marks in the Solingen manner, at least not in notable references.
The exceptions were Thomas Gill, Samuel Harvey, James Woolley of Birmingham whose blades were sound as they competed with Solingen in the last quarter of the 18th c.


Spain had no worthwhile production of sword blades after end of the 17th c. and even in latter 18th they depended on Solingen for sword blades. There was a Toledo works by 19th century, but again, very limited production except bayonets etc.


I have never been aware of sword making centers in Central America, thought there may have been pretty much blacksmith grade shops as in Cuba and some Mexican regions. There are numbers of such blacksmith grade espada ancha blades from Mexico.

[Kubur]

[QUOTE=Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by ariel

Actually British blades were not of especially high repute overall until Wilkinson advanced the quality just after mid 19th c. Even then there was always the ever present 'duel' with Solingen, and true, the British never used spurious marks in the Solingen manner, at least not in notable references.
The exceptions were Thomas Gill, Samuel Harvey, James Woolley of Birmingham whose blades were sound as they competed with Solingen in the last quarter of the 18th c.

To support Jim's preach, here is my samuel harvey 18th c nimcha
British blades stay popular in Morocco during the 19th c. with the koummiya. only but it's another story..

Amen

[kronckew]

My guardless pseudo-shashka nimcha? Eyelash stamps, horn grip...

[midelburgo]

British machete middle of XIXth.

Another one.

My Nimcha.

[David R]

Originally Posted by midelburgo

British machete middle of XIXth.

Another one.

My Nimcha.

Very interested in the machete with the ribbed horn grip as I have the exact same one, but with *arrantizado rather than warranted!

[Jim McDougall]

[QUOTE=Kubur]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

To support Jim's preach, here is my samuel harvey 18th c nimcha
British blades stay popular in Morocco during the 19th c. with the koummiya. only but it's another story..

Amen

Thank you for my ordainment Kubur!!! and for the support in my 'sermon'.
As has often been noted, British blades surely did find circulation in many unusual places, and Africa was of course included.

I have a takouba with a MOLE blade. Unusual to see a 'Harvey' blade in a nimcha.


The koummya story sounds exciting! Possibly there is a parable in it as well.


Peace.

[Richard G]

For what it's worth, and probably not much, I'd say the style of the lettering on the stamps on these blades is consistent with a British manufacture. I'm not saying this makes them British, just that it does not rule this out.
Regards
Richard

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Richard G

For what it's worth, and probably not much, I'd say the style of the lettering on the stamps on these blades is consistent with a British manufacture. I'm not saying this makes them British, just that it does not rule this out.
Regards
Richard

Well noted Richard, and these stamps are consistent with British produced blades of second half 19th c. and in the manner of tool type products.
It does seem the three fuller pattern so consistent with German blades of the previous century were indeed favored by these firms.

Martindale &Co. of Birmingham produced machetes of these types from about 1880s into WWII, as well as bolos etc. for Philippines. They also apparently supplied blades to Masai in Kenya in 19th c. for their seme swords and I believe the spears.