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Old 27th January 2014, 10:51 PM   #3
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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Your friend is a lucky guy Valjhun! This appears to be a good 18th century example of a Polish karabela. The Islamic appearance would be well placed as these sabres evolved from the Siege of Vienna in 1683 where sabres of this form apparently were captured from Turks. The origin of the term has long been debated and one of the more plausible theories claims it derives from Kerbala in Western Turkey.
These became extremely popular with Polish troops and well known in events toward Polish independence in the late 18th century, later revived in the 19th as a patriotically oriented Polish sword used often in parade mounts.

This one appears to have a sound and reasonably early combat blade, nice patination on the guard and the stylized birdhead hilt has a chevron pattern similar to one in Ostrowski ("Polish Sabres:Thier Origins and Evolution" Jan Ostrowski, 1979) which is shown as Lvov made.


Crossed posts with Ariel, he is right that these became remarkably popular throughout Eastern Europe, but in my estimation that chevron feature seems most often associated with Polish examples. Most others have a greater degree of ostentatious motif aligned with the dress and parade status concept.
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