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Old 27th May 2019, 04:35 AM   #26
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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It is indeed good to see this thread come up again, and most interesting sword which appears to be possibly what remains of a 'nimcha' of North Africa. The quillons of course do not seem exactly the same, but there were numbers of variant hilt systems.While the markings seem to have the triple dots and configuration of what is typically regarded as the 'sickle mark' of Genoa, this marking in variation was widely copied by other blade making centers.

It seems that blade making centers in Styria much favored these marks and applied them to their blades. It is known that Austrian blades had gained much favor in North Africa by the 19th c. and many filtered into entrepots there, so seeing them on nimchas was not unusual.

It is difficult however to imagine how a nimcha (if this indeed is one of these) with Styrian blade, ended up in the Russian Black Sea region. Genoa had diminished in its colonies and blade traffic by the 18th c. and while the reputation and of course influences lingered on, many of the blades were now typically produced elsewhere for trade.

We might surmise that Barbary Pirates and trade interaction in the Mediterranean might have networked this sword into the context in which it was found, but that would remain an assumption.
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