A king among takoubas

Iain · 20th October 2012, 02:18 PM

Thanks for posting the image Gav (and of course the kind comments).

That particular shot is from North Cameroon, where some of the traditional emirates are still pretty active culturally I believe.

Period photos of this style of sword are a bit harder to find, I have a few that have been posted in various threads before. But I have never encountered this style of brass forte plate before - only the more practical steel forte plates sometimes used to reenforce a blade mount. Usually the brass is just a little piece, or three pieces like on this sword: http://takouba.org/takouba42/ or this one: http://takouba.org/takouba45/

A similarly wide sword, although later and without the brass can also be seen in “Waffen aus Zentralafrika” also coming from North Cameroon.

A.alnakkas · 20th October 2012, 03:23 PM

What a lovely piece, I cant add more to what I said to you yesterday! ;-)

I would like to see our chat yesterday evolve here especially about the nicks on the edge, as you observe, it was not done in one random piece but atleast 3 others so what does this offer us? It will be certainly interesting to know that takoubas were used for parrying and that is also done with local blades which are often seen as inferior.

Looking forward to learning more :-)

20th October 2012, 02:18 PM	#1
Iain Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Olomouc Posts: 1,708	Thanks for posting the image Gav (and of course the kind comments). That particular shot is from North Cameroon, where some of the traditional emirates are still pretty active culturally I believe. Period photos of this style of sword are a bit harder to find, I have a few that have been posted in various threads before. But I have never encountered this style of brass forte plate before - only the more practical steel forte plates sometimes used to reenforce a blade mount. Usually the brass is just a little piece, or three pieces like on this sword: http://takouba.org/takouba42/ or this one: http://takouba.org/takouba45/ A similarly wide sword, although later and without the brass can also be seen in “Waffen aus Zentralafrika” also coming from North Cameroon.

20th October 2012, 03:23 PM	#2
A.alnakkas Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Kuwait Posts: 1,340	What a lovely piece, I cant add more to what I said to you yesterday! ;-) I would like to see our chat yesterday evolve here especially about the nicks on the edge, as you observe, it was not done in one random piece but atleast 3 others so what does this offer us? It will be certainly interesting to know that takoubas were used for parrying and that is also done with local blades which are often seen as inferior. Looking forward to learning more :-)