I'm still a youngster in terms of knowledge about ethnographic weapons. I've always had an interest in swords since fencing team days at university. However, I guess I started collecting about five years ago (or at least that was when I bought my first antique sword). I'm not sure why I drifted towards ethnographic weapons, but probably because they present more of a challenge than European armoury, being generally harder to find resources for and because they don't follow standard patterns, hence are more varied. Now I enjoy finding out about the people and times that they come from almost as much as collecting the weapons themselves, but only almost
Swords led to long-guns and I'm slowly becoming more focused on Indo-Persian and north African weapons. For the reasons above, and not least the fact that there someone as enthusiastic and helpful as Iain, I'm also developing a particular interest in takoubas.