Very odd Sudanese sword for discussion

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by Tim Simmons

Inspiration?

I think that the inspiration for the Del Tin is the sword shown on pages 44=45 of Ian Peirce, "Swords of the Viking Age", Boydell Press 2002. The sword is C1572, Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen. The hilt is bronze or brass over iron. There are some other metal hilted (i.e., with metal grip as will as metal pommel and guard) Viking swords known, often with silver or gold. This particular sword is nice for reproduction since brass is actually authentic (or close) rather than a substitute for gold.

The blade doesn't look like the Del Tin. But it does like like it might come from a modern repro. In particular, the blade past the fuller is diamond-section - I don't recall seeing this geometry on any authentic kaskara or kaskara0like sword. But it is very common on modern repros, since it's what you get when you start with a diamond section blade and cut a fuller into it. Usually, this makes a bad blade, since this means that the blade becomes thicker just where you want it to become thinner.

There are clones of the Del Tin, so if somebody doesn't want to invest Del Tin level money in a gamble like this, there might be alternatives. If it's a non-Del Tin, then the blade might be original to the hilt. On the side-by-side photos above, the edge of the Del Tin looks more rounded than the "antique".

I have a brass hilt a little like this. Undecorated sides - the pattern is only on the front and back, and the pommel is flatter front-to-back, included over the top, rather than rounded. Unfullered blade. But this one was at the cheap-and-nasty end of the scale, and there are probably others intermediate between this and the Del Tin. (This, or at least the blade, was intended as a pell sword, with the hilt perhaps to be recycled.)