Zanzibar?

Oriental-Arms · 29th March 2014, 01:06 PM

The story goes like this (As best as I could substantiate it, partially only):

In the mid 80’s, a lot of swords was found in an abandoned (?) Yemeni armory. They were purchased by a local dealer, transported over the Arabian desert, crossed the red sea and the Sinai peninsula and sea freighted to Cyprus. An Israeli antique dealer brought about 30 of the lot to Israel and sold it to one of the local collectors.

The variety was amassing. Mostly 19C. German made blades but few long straight ones has the Passau and Solingen running wolf stamping (I believe original and authentic stamps). The variety in quality and workmanship of the handles and guards was also great, but ALL had this peculiar guard with the “ring”, somewhat crudely made as rightly mentioned by Stuart. Unfortunately we could not get the ones with the running wolf stamp.

29th March 2014, 01:06 PM	#5
Oriental-Arms Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Haifa, Israel Posts: 183	Provenance of the so called “Tribal Manufacture” Zanzibar / Yemeni swords The story goes like this (As best as I could substantiate it, partially only): In the mid 80’s, a lot of swords was found in an abandoned (?) Yemeni armory. They were purchased by a local dealer, transported over the Arabian desert, crossed the red sea and the Sinai peninsula and sea freighted to Cyprus. An Israeli antique dealer brought about 30 of the lot to Israel and sold it to one of the local collectors. The variety was amassing. Mostly 19C. German made blades but few long straight ones has the Passau and Solingen running wolf stamping (I believe original and authentic stamps). The variety in quality and workmanship of the handles and guards was also great, but ALL had this peculiar guard with the “ring”, somewhat crudely made as rightly mentioned by Stuart. Unfortunately we could not get the ones with the running wolf stamp.