Talk about your best buy in Ethnic weaponary!
 

What has been your best bargain buy?
The one piece in your ethnic weapons collection that stands out and makes you think "Yeah, that was a lucky find".

Post with pics and story!

But if I told how much it cost no one would pay me what it's worth !!! :eek:

Rick

What you paid and what it is worth are two different things ;)

Ok I have had a few African best buys but the Sudanese dagger at the top cost me about $16 on ebay the wire was unraveled but I restored it back the best I could. Here a few more very good buys ;)

Lew

Lovely pieces Lew! Really top drawer, very rare to see pieces as nice as those these days!


Come-on everyone else! A little collection pride and bragging never hurt ;-)

There Have Been Quite A Few
 

This one is the only one I will post , $60.00 US .

Other better scores have been sold; some to members here; those I will not list . :)

Yeah, thats a sweet deal! £30ish mmmm and you say "I'll take it" then "Do you have any more?"

eBay, listed as a European Sword . :D
There was one other with waves but crossed communications with a fellow member resulted in the loss of the other one for both of us . :(

Hi Guys,
If you mean cost versus value then I've been quite fortunate in some of my purchases over the past wee while. The Kukri was about 8 GBP (16 USD) bought with one other, the shield 10 GBP (20 USD) and the small Dha about 12 GBP (24 USD) all from E-Bay and all misdescribed. Using the same criteria ie., cost versus value my best ever purchase was my first sword in the early 60's, a beautifully maintained 17th Century Katana with an even earlier bronze Tsuba the rest being in the usual WW2 mounts, cost me the grand sum of one pound and ten shillings, about 3 USD, even in the early 60's that was a bargain. Needless to say it has long gone the money gained spent, probably, on cigarettes and whisky and wild wild women.
Regards,
Norman.

Wow, you guys do get lucky on ebay!!!

Lovely Dhal Norman
I prefer the distinctly Indian chiseled steel designs to the more persian influenced.

I guess my best buy (that I still have) is this good 19thC Pesh-Kabz.
The usual Jadeite scales etc, but a nice complete one with no damage/chips or loss to the blade tip. It is 35cm not including the swivel decoration. It was £23 (about $50) at a car boot sale.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...owl/001-10.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/002-7.jpg

My first weapon was a Moro kris, which was hanging in a guys garage....this was about 1961. He gave it to me for helping sand down a frame on an old Ford Model A he was putting together.....hot rod heaven!
Wish I still had it, but as always it probably was no big deal as far as what it really was...but for me, it was Excalibur! I've been addicted to studying weapons ever since, but in those days went into regulation swords first.
It got traded off probably 20 years later.

It is an interesting topic and the main question is, what constitutes a good buy? I am sure every single one of us has had a few good bargains from auction sites or garage sales, but I do not consider them my best buys, just my best deals. My best buys tend to be the ones from other fellow collectors. I have bought items from other members of this forum and they have always been really nice items, and on top of that the whole transaction experience has been very good.
Also, along the lines of what Jim wrote, some of the first items I ever acquired, almost all of which were wallhangers with no real collecting value, are still my most memorable purchases, because they were what got me into this hobby.
Regards,
Teodor

I quite agree Teodor,

Please share a particularly memorable acquisition which has given you a lot of pleasure and post some pics of course ;-)

Regards
Gene

Hear hear :) :)

Best bargains might indeed be a bit confronting for other forum members. :cool:

My best buys, all between 10 and 7 years ago.
- Left : small dancing shield in a shop in Kuching for 150 MR (ringgit)
- Left : dark shield with unique relief cutting. late 19th /early 20th cent.
bought from a friend collector/trader at Nlg 800 (= Eur 360)
- Right : red shield with nice rattan works and nice handle.
(Check Oriental arms for a identical shield) from same friend at Nlg 600
- Right shield : old hair shield with various restaurations and getting pretty bald. Maybe not among the best buys, but also Dayak so also on this picture :p

Gene,

It is hard for me to single out a particular acquisition and generally, I tend to develop a strong emotional attachment to almost all of my pieces. So I cannot single out a specific item, but here is a random pile of some of my favorites. Please excuse the poor photo - I am probably the worst photographer out there you can find.
Regards,
Teodor

my favourite is my

'egyptian curved blade sword' from e-pray.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...kew/ag_dha.jpg

her 'expert' husband told her what it was :)

my 'odd shaped' machete is another. i was the only bidder on this (and the top one)

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s.../kujang2-1.jpg

my £5 whale shaped knife

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...kew/parang.jpg

another rusty old jungle machete

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...ew/khyber2.jpg

assassin's dagger no one else wanted

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...ew/kindjal.jpg

found a few sleepers

I have a lot good buys. Actually I prefer to buy this way :D

Sometimes luck is smiling to you in strange places. I bought this
Rhino Koummya

in Sweden two years ago. The same day I had to pay more in a restaurant to celebrate it :D

$125 including shipping: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...hlight=khanjar

Friends Prank almost the best buy of the century!
 

A few years ago my friend handed me what seemed to be a brand new dealers catalog with no date on it just a number. When I opened it up there was page after page of fine Indo Persian wootz daggers with low prices. Of course I felt like a kid in a candy shop :D. So I placed a call to the dealer and rattled off item number after item number but there was a uneasy silence on the other end of the phone then the dealer says what catalog are you using? I told him the number and he started to giggle he then tells me that catalog was from 1983 :eek: :D well you know a felt like an ass so I thanked him for his time. I called my friend back and he laughed and said got you lol!


Lew

Lew,

I love friends with an outstanding sense of humor :D :D :D

I have only been collecting since 2002. First it was Chinese swords, then Javanese and Balinese keris.

In March of 2004 a good friend called me and aid that he was having a "garage sale" and that among the items was a "wavy bladed sword." He knew that I collected "wavy bladed knives" and thought that I might be interested.

He had two swords and a dagger. I had never seen swords like these before. He said his relative had collected these pieces when he was stationed in the Philippine in the late 1800s, but neither he, nor I had any idea where they were made.

The quality was evident, so I bought all three for a total of $600.

The "wavy blade" was a huge, by Javanese standards, kris. I fell instantly in love with this big powerful sword that happened to be a double fuller twist core with original scabbard.

Turned out to be not only my first Moro piece, but as time has gone by, one of my favorites.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ht=garage+sale

The dagger looked European and truthfully I really did not like it all that much, so I posted it on this forum to find out more.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ht=garage+sale

I like it a LOT more now. There is a strong likelihood that this dagger belonged to Philippine Katipunan General Leandro Fullon. I have promised it to a deserving forumite who traces his linage back to Fullon.

The third piece was a Kampilan. Also an exceptional piece. Will dig out my pictures and post them later.

Hi Kronckew,
I don't know if you already know the correct name for your 'odd shaped machete' but, just in case, it is a A Javanese kudi, a very old
talismanic weapon.

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/weaponsindexlist53.html

Regards David

yes, depending on which side of jawa you come from, the western sundanese call it a 'kujang', kudi being the eastern name. the 'older' kujang have 3 holes, based on hinduism (brahma,shiva, vishnu), while the 'newer' ones have five, a sign of the five pillars of islam signifying the more recent replacement of the pantheistic elder faith by that religion. they are strange and mysterious items of power. interesting article is HERE

Thanks Kronck :cool:

My medieval bayonet from Ebay. :)

Steve