It was a VERY Merry Xmas!

[CourseEight]

Course Eight, looks like you was really good this year! Congrats! Very nice grouping. Any thoughts, observations, identifications on these from anyone?

Thanks! I'll give it a whirl, as the forum once again has proven an invaluable resource for information.

The Black Sea Yataghan/Laz Bichaq on top (apparently bid upon by several forum members) has pretty much been covered elsewhere, particularly this thread. Interestingly, mine seems to be quite a bit like the picture posted from Tirri's book in the aforementioned thread, albeit in worse condition. It is also mentioned in this thread that Tirri's contraversial attribution was based on only his particular weapon, which may have been tied to N. Africa even if the origins of the weapon form itself do not. Have I interpretted the discussion correctly? Is this sort of form/decoration "rarer" amonst Black Sea Yataghans than other types? More pictures are forthcoming on this one; lots of holiday to clean up, to make space for my light box...

Next up is the bichwa, which has a lot of similarities to this one on Oriental-Arms:

http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=1425

The title says 18th c., the discription 19th c., so, late 18th early 19th I suppose? Some differences are that the handle of mine is more of the "knuckle-duster" form and less of the "ring" shape. The scabbard on mine is red velvet over wood with blue velvet at the tips, rather than leather over wood. And of course instead of two elephants, mine has a dog and a bird. I've been reading through my Elgood, but cannot find anything about the Hindu symbolism of dogs. I'd love to hear more about this from the experts! Will post more pictures of this one too.

The Ankus is, apparently, this one:

http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=2483

So that's pretty much all there is to say there. The bells certainly do sound nice.

And the throwing nice looks to be Matakam/North East Nigeria/North Cameroon, as discussed in this thread:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=Throwing

Your mom got me as well, although I should not really blame anyone for falling well short of the winning bid. You sure need to come up with something VERY special next Mother's Day.

You know, I'm forbidden to look for ethnographic stuff on ebay over $100 after Mid-November, so truth is I have no idea what she was up to. But don't worry, I got her something nice for Xmas too!

--Radleigh