3 new swords for comment
 

just picked up these three off ebay

Hi, you have been busy....I assume that these are the sellers pictures.

The first sword , the Dha, should have a nice forged blade, with very good balance.... do you know how thick the blade is? If it is too thin ...it could be a tourist piece.

The second a Takouba, usually associated with the Toureg but in truth are 'adopted' by many Tribes/groups throughout the Region.....worth doing a search on the Forum and here

http://www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/takouba/index.html

The third is from the Congo and is widespread, common to the Western Mongo: Kundu, Konda, Ntomba, and Kote Tribes. The desgns on the blade may help to identify the tribe or area.

I expect many others will add their comments once you receive them and post your own pictures and description.

All the best
David

I agree with David on the first two. The third he probably got totally correct also but I cannot confirm it as I know virually nothing about swords from the Congo

On the dha/darb it is probably thai not burmese from the blade shape and markings. It is probably a fairly contemporary sword. That does not equate to a tourist item. It may or may not be a sword for use. It would depend on how the blade was forged and heat treated. I cannot guess at that from pictures. A search on these forums can even give you a lead as to the region where smiths use those makers marks. Mark, Ian, Andrew, Dan Wilke as well as several contributors from Thailand who post here would be good sources. I would also recommend checking out the dha research index and the online pages from the recent exhibit in Macao. I need to ask Antonio about posting a link to writeup on dha on my sword collection page. You can see my dha here the page needs to be updated I have sold a couple and added a couple of new ones.

On the Takouba as talked about these are attributed to the Taureg but also used by the Hausa and Fulani. Jim, Lee, and Artzi quickly come to mind as people here who can give you a great deal of information on them.

Now on another note "THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DECREED THAT COLLECTING SWORDS CAN BE HIGHLY ADDICTIVE" Just thought it only fair to warn you