new addition, origin is confusing
 

newly arrived purchase. leather scabbard, horn handle, the brass cover on the handle is loose but solder would fix that. no distinctive marks on sword. blade has one full blood groove, and one above which is about 4 inches long, but the blade does not look like it has been sharpened down to loose size, the second blood groove starts by fuller and ends 6 inches from fuller. blade has to be cleaned properly to see what kind it is. any ideas on origin? ukranian but no crests, islamic possibly?, or is it turkish/ottoman?

Mavi

You need to post a picture ;)


Lew

hehe, the attachments didnt come through, but here they are.
thanks

It is unquestionably Turkish, second half of the 19th century, military. That's when the Turks decided to model their military after the European, in particular German example. Moltke, a young officer then, was put in charge.
The swords were modeled after the traditional Kilic Adjemi, that was uncannily similar to the European Mameluke swords ( surprise, surprise...). Initially, they had handmade blades, but toward the end of the century, there were more and more light, nickel-plated ones. the wire-stitching of the scabbards disappeared. The cross-guard with down-turned quillons is typical of the era.

Thanks Ariel, thats the answer I was hoping for hehe. I had seen pictures with officers from Turkey from the 19th century, and the downward facing quillions was the main reason this sword gave itself away as turkish. were these swords ever made with wootz, damascus blades? this one really doesnt have the nickel plated characteristics and look, and the way it has discoloured and pitted.

Ariel,

I have run across 3 seperate examples like the sword pictured which had Caucasian marked blades. All 3, without scabbards, had a blade with a stamp just like the one, top center, on p. 334 of Atstatsuvurians book. What do you think the connection is?

The markings you mentioned (p.334, in the middle) are Armenian, and Armenians were very prominent in all kinds of crafts in Turkey, Persia and the Caucasus. Both Astvatsaturyan and Miller indicate that most of the Tbilisi, Vladikavkaz and Akhaltsikhe swordmakers were ethnic Armenians. I have seen Turkish military sword identical to the one under discussion here with mass-produced blade that was stamped with Armenian family name (escapes me which :o ) as the owner of the factory. Great Geork Puruntsuzov was originally from Erzerum ( Turkey) and moved to the Russian-controlled Caucasus.
Interestingly, Caucasian blades with Armenian inscriptions are very rare: they seemed to make blades for everybody but refrained from owning (?) or using (?) them. Not a part of their culture? I never managed to understand it...

ariel, would that mean that this blade in question is not mass produced? or special made for a certain officer by request? or the blade and sword made entirely in turkey during the 19th century?

mavi1970,these were mass produced in the 2nd half of the 19th c. in Turkey. You can find better or worse quality samples (compared by the materials used, like ordinary horn or rhino grip, nicely worked silver or just white metal mountings etc.). You can find a lot of white metal mountings as spare part in antique shops. So we can get clue that they were produced in large numbers, not by private orders but state contract. However, some officers later personally ordered masters gold or silver koftgari decorations perhaps, as some blades have such inscriptions.

erlikan,
are these swords readily found these days? or rare, i havent seen many available.

Well, not as many as Ottoman ordinary officer swords but to find one is not difficult for sure. And, they dont have only star. They always have both crescent and the star, 8 or 5 pointed, depending upon the period. Yours has star only. The crescent has fallen perhaps?? (They do often).

Here is your answer: a military sword with an old blade. The same idea as with the Japanese Gunto with ancestral blades.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA:IT&ih=019

ariel,
yes i saw that sale. pretty similair guard and handle, but much more ornate and in better shape. much higher then my threshold. but at least i have a nice entry level one for that type of sword.

I would not get depressed: in my mind the "ornate" one was grossly overpriced. Interesting blade though, and may be quite old, but I would not pay that type of money for a pleasure of a 20 min research. Why did it go that high? Gods only know: I guess the magic of the words" Turkish", " Kilij", "18th century" drives some totally batshit :shrug: . In reality it is a reconstituted sword, nothing more.
Yours is better! :D :D :D