I forgot to mention, but many may know it, that especially after the Sepoy mutiny, the English collected thousands and thousands of all kinds of weapons, and the penalty for hiding the weapons was very hard. Some weapons went to museums, but it was few, as I understand it, most of them were cut to pieces and melted down, and some of the steel was used for bridges for roads and railway. Few were allowed to keep their weapons, the Raja’s and Maharaja’s who had helped the English of course, but in many cases the authors speak about their personal weapons which sounds as if their armouries were emptied – and we know that some of them were, few weapons were picked up by ‘collectors’ and the rest of the weapons were sold as old iron.
This of course means, that weapons we to day consider being rare as a type, not necessarily were as rare at the time they were in use.
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