My first Tulwar

[spiral]

My apology was to you Fernado & to other foromites & the moderaters as well.

My rude comment about IQ was particularily aimed at the finger on the ricaso concept, from whoever it came from. You or the auther or anyone else. After all it realy does negate any point in having a guard. It is a shame i put my point over so badley though. me bad. I am just incredulus when people say it.

That rather shows my then state of bieng as your comment was more related to the storeing handles & blades in different places.

RE.

Originally Posted by fernando

For the mounting, hilts were held upsidown and pitch was poured into the hollow grip, the only material that held the blades in position.

Examination of tulwar hilts quite often shows methods other than copius amouts of pitch & sap derivied resins I think?


Katana, India is {& was.} made up with many races & peoples in some areas like Coorg People most people are very small, While some of the Punjabi & Rajastan people are rather on the large size, I dont think one handle size would do for evryone.

Spiral

[fernando]

Hi Spiral,

Let's skip over that and go back to business

Originally Posted by spiral

Examination of tulwar hilts quite often shows methods other than copius amouts of pitch & sap derivied resins I think?

Spiral

When i said the only material that fixed the blade i meant to say that there were no rivets or screws or the like, just the liquid material. The book actually mentions pitch, but i am ready to accept the idea of other solutions being used. This is my first tulwar after all, and i only have a couple books on the subject, whereas you have a larger experience. Pitch was o.k. for me, as i had already read it was also used to fix jambiyas. Besides, it is a very old stuff. Maybe other solutions took place in later times ?
As for the tulwar ricasso and the forefinger, it wasn't in the book, but my whilling to speculate a bit in the subject of European influences on Oriental weaponry, as i tryed to explain in my reply to the last Ariel's posting.
All the best
fernando

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by spiral

My apology was to you Fernado & to other foromites & the moderaters as well.

Cheers, Spiral.

[ariel]

Fernando,
Re: slanted quillons.
For the life of me, I cannot remember where I got this info from originally. I've heard it mentioned casually so many times that I assumed it was just a well known and trivial piece of info.
If I am wrong, than I also apologize.

[spiral]

Thankyou....

Fernando, For me sap & pitch are all very similar, although some are also fitted with a chalky rock type substance, possibly borax? some tulwar do have a rivet in them as well, & on some otheres the finial is pinched or some such tight fitting onto the tang as a permenant fixing & indeed I have had one piece where the final was actuly part of the tang, it was only because of damage that this was visible.

I dont know how common such fixings were as generaly the second two varietys are only visble if the handle is damaged or removed in some way.

I expect others here have seen many more dismantled tulwar than I.

Spiral

[Jens Nordlunde]

This post can also be read on My Pata.


Damascene Work in India, 1892, by T. H. Hendley.

Page 10. The fist fills the grip of the Indian sword, and a large pommel confines the hand. Burton points out that this was the case long ago, as Arjuna is so represented grasping his weapon in the Caves of Elephanta. As the Indian does not fence, he does not require a straight pointed weapon. The Indian hilt is small and has no knuckle-guard. The heavier swords have knuckle-guards, and even basket hilts. The huge gauntlet swords – Patta – used by the Nagas or military monks of Jeypore, and by Mahrattas, have large steel gauntlets.
Comments to page 10. I find the description of how the hilts were held were good, and feel sure that he would have mentioned it, had the Indians held it otherwise.

Page 11. [about the katar] It is mentioned by Ibn Batuka, who lived in the days of Mohamed Toghluk, that is, about AD 1332.
Comments to page 11. A travel companion of Betuta’s was killed at the coast of west India, with a weapon described as being a katar. As the katar described, hardly is the first one ‘invented’, it is likely that the katar, as a weapon, is far older.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by spiral

Thankyou....

Fernando, For me sap & pitch are all very similar, although some are also fitted with a chalky rock type substance, possibly borax? some tulwar do have a rivet in them as well, & on some otheres the finial is pinched or some such tight fitting onto the tang as a permenant fixing & indeed I have had one piece where the final was actuly part of the tang, it was only because of damage that this was visible.

I dont know how common such fixings were as generaly the second two varietys are only visble if the handle is damaged or removed in some way.

I expect others here have seen many more dismantled tulwar than I.

Spiral

Very interesting and oportune, Spiral

I will start be re-interpretering what i have read. Tulwar hilts are built to one piece, not meaning they are cast in one piece. So the assumed difference between them and other sword hilts is that they are kept assembled in one piece, whereas the other diverse hilts remain available with their components separate. I hope this is not nonsense.
As for the fixing to the blade, i look at the several examples in Tirri's book, and they all seem not to have rivets. Could this mean could mean the majority of these pieces are fixed only by "glueing" the tang into the grips?
On the hand i must say that i am just arriving from my visit back to the guy who sold me the tulwar, as i knew he had two more of these pieces, which i haven't found so appealing. Efectively one of them had its tang also fixed by a rivet. The other one must have had a hilt "pommel" accident, and the disk and finial were refixed by openning a vent on the grip top and insert the finial "flat vertical plate" into it, and fix it with two rivets ... aparently a period repair. However i saw no signs of this disc/finial set being fixed/riveted to the tang, before or after the damage.

Now i have some important questions and i need some help here

I have noticed that these two tulwars, without knuckle guards, had grooves and also a false edge in the one third blade near the tip, as for thrusting. One of them even has a little hump where the bevel starts. Looking to Tirry's book, i would say these would be gaddaras, a sort of tulwar with a kilig blade. Is this potentially correct?
They both have short blades, some 28" in straight line.Their disks are very plain, as all the rest.
The one with the humped false edge had one langet repair. Looks like a new langet was welded with brass or bronze soldering. I wonder if "golden" look soldering is old enough for this to be a period repair. I can only think of contemporaneous oxiacetylene brass or bronze soldering.
I am tempted to buy this piece, the price is around $ 280 (the one i have now cost me $ 350).
I now i am a sucker.
Should i buy this humped false edge gaddara looking tulwar ?
Remember this is a small country and there are'nt many old weapons around.
BTW i am not an eBay or any kind of web auction user
Thanks a lot in advance for some helping response.
fernando

[spiral]

Originally Posted by fernando

.
As for the fixing to the blade, i look at the several examples in Tirri's book, and they all seem not to have rivets.

Hi Fernando, can I suggest you look again at Tirris book, in. fig. 249 one is riveted twice, {Ive never seen double rivets on tulwar before.} & in fig 249c 3 have the single rivet fixing. So that 4 out of 12 tulwar showing rivets, { fig 249b they have none.} But realy unless you try to dissasemble the grip you can find what other hidden fixing there may be.

If any tulwar were kept dissasembled, {something I personaly find hard to belive, but cannot disprove. dispite the fact it would logisticaly be a nightmare.}} they would only be the very lowest quality pieces for volonteers & conscripted peasents, as after all all the Marajahs, kings & major landowners whatever, had there own proffesional standing full time army & troops.

Brass Brazing has been around for centurys in India.

For $280 I would want a very nice tulwar, but they are commen in England.

Spiral

[Emanuel]

Hello,

Perhaps a way to resolve the matter of whether or not tulwars were stored disassembled would be to look at the old catalogues when Indian armouries sold their stock to western auction houses and collectors. Were the countless tulwars sold assembled or disassembled? If assembled, would the armouries or the buyers go through all the trouble of re-hilting the thousands of tulwars that were bought?

Fernando, I recommend you start using eBay, there are loads of tulwars at cheap prices, as well as scores of other goodies. Here in Canada I think our situation is reversed from yours: our antique shops are empty and we have no junk shops. People here have little to no real interest in pre-WWI stuff. At military shows the cheap ethno tourist trinkets are priced off the scale, so ebay is the best alternative.

Regards,
Emanuel

[fernando]

Originally Posted by spiral

Hi Fernando, can I suggest you look again at Tirris book, in. fig. 249 one is riveted twice, {Ive never seen double rivets on tulwar before.} & in fig 249c 3 have the single rivet fixing. So that 4 out of 12 tulwar showing rivets, { fig 249b they have none.} But realy unless you try to dissasemble the grip you can find what other hidden fixing there may be.
Spiral

Hi Spiral,

I confess my eyes were not correctly focused.
I wouldn't know that rivets were "disguised" by decoration. I was infuenced by the tulwar i saw at the seller i visited, that has no ( more ) decoration and the rivet is clearly seen , with no surrounding efects. I now can see them easy at Tirris book. Not wanting to argue for the sake of resisting to this fact, could it be that the ancient tulwars ( before XVI-XVII century ) were mostly unriveted ?

fernando

[fernando]

Originally Posted by spiral

If any tulwar were kept dissasembled, {something I personaly find hard to belive, but cannot disprove. dispite the fact it would logisticaly be a nightmare.}} they would only be the very lowest quality pieces for volonteers & conscripted peasents, as after all all the Marajahs, kings & major landowners whatever, had there own proffesional standing full time army & troops.
Spiral

Hi Spiral

This is contingent, as can be relative to the period at question.I will better revert with a strict and exaustive translation of page 189, that refers:

''' The main charateristic of this arm is little known, but rather interesting. Apart from individual arms that were manufactured for high rank personalities, more simple tulwars were also produced, in large quantities, for the Sovereigns arsenals. Invasions, popular insubordinations and palatial revolutions were very frequent. Few were the Sovereigns that dyed of natural causes. The state of war between ones and others was a frequente situation. In this atmosphere it became obvious that the possession and access to the arsenals were a preocupation of the greatest priority. A system was invented that impeached the possibility of using an Indian arsenal from one moment to the other. The handles of tulwars were built in metal ( usually iron ), joining guard, grip and pommel in one only piece, which doesn't happen in the majority of white weapons of other origins, where all these components were separated one from eachother. As tulwars handles were one only part, it became easy to join all these in one arsenal ( we are talking, in round numbers, in the order of the one hundred thousand handles ), and build a tower where these could be well kept with "seven keys" ( my commas , for a Portuguese figure of speech ). In another tower, distant from the first one, the respective blades were kept. When a sovereign decided to invade a neighbour country or prepare himself to defend his own, such event would be known within months of antecipation, which allowed for the mounting of the blades in their handles. Such blades had a short tang, which was neither peened, screwed, or stuck by a pin. To couple the blade with the grip, the late was turned upsidown, pouring in into his hollow part heated pitch, therefore liquid, as the blade was inserted. Once the pith cooled down, the blade would be fixed enough for battle, during years. In case it started to oscilate, the fixing system could allways be repeated. A strategic Sovereign would know how much time he needed to mount his army weapons and, taking precaution, had his arsenals ready in due time for the distribution of tulwars. In case of a mutiny or a palatial revolution, there was no time to mount the tulwars, in a manner that the arsenals were relatively protected from improper utilization.'''

As a curiosity, i have read in pages 244/255 of the same book that, between the XI and XVIII centuries, only twenty six out of the sixty four Industani Sovereigns left the throne due to natural death. As for the other twenty eight:
13 were killed (Gheias-oo-dee by his son and Seyed Mobarik at the mosque ).
8 were deposed/killed.
2 were deposed and blinded.
5 were deposed.
2 were deposed and expelled.
2 dyed in battle ( Ibraim Lodi in Paniput ).
1 was poisoned.
1 was emprisoned and killed.
1 dyed by accident.
1 fled after military defeat.
1 abdicated.
... Did i fail anyone ?

fernando

[fernando]

Originally Posted by spiral

Brass Brazing has been around for centurys in India.

For $280 I would want a very nice tulwar, but they are commen in England.

Spiral

Brass brazing, that's the term.
Thanks a lot for the info. I thaught well that the langet repair was a period one.
But maybe after all i don't buy the piece or, if i ever do, will counter offer a lower price, like 100 pounds.
Here between us two, i thaught you were posting from the the States.
Sorry for the mistake

fernando

[spiral]

Originally Posted by fernando

Remember this is a small country and there are'nt many old weapons around.

I think Mr. Rhienheardt can explain why that is!


Well if he has got that many pieces thats incredible, he could build the most arms impresive museam in the world!

But its still true that If he looked at each piece for five minutes, non stop for 10 hours a day evry day it would take him 15years!

Its a pity there arnt more photos of his collection online.

Spiral

[fernando]

Originally Posted by spiral

Well if he has got that many pieces thats incredible, he could build the most arms impresive museam in the world!

But its still true that If he looked at each piece for five minutes, non stop for 10 hours a day evry day it would take him 15years!

Its a pity there arnt more photos of his collection online.

Spiral

I see that you are at your best dividing 500 000 by time minutes ... without even a break for tea ( or pee ).
And what kind of 500 000 ... weapons or objects ? if it is objects, you can look to an entire row at same time. Therefore that is cheating
I have seen pictures with tulwars, samshirs and the like, stuffed in antique clay pots ... with a glimpse you can look at lots of them ... i can scan you pictures of these.
Come on Spiral?!
What has happened to your IQ ?
Where did you pick that 500 000 figure from ?
Some guy without controll of decimals ?
I find it rather implausible, even considering the so many bullets he acquires from firemen who pick them from the bushes when they act in the area of Lisbon defences, built for the Napoleonic invasions in 1809 ... remember Wellington ?
I bought him some of these bullets ... as many as the ones he doesn't need to look at any more.
Judging by the kukris i have already seen at his shop, i wouln't be surpised if he had a good number of them in his private collection. I remeber seing years ago in his Cascais shop a huge one, with a blade about half meter long ( almost two feet in your language ). I don't know if this was a decoration piece or what but, if memory helps, it had a label warning for its dangerous sharpeness. Probably you also find this hard to beleive but, this time, it is i who stand above that
I also told Emanuel that he has several pieces spread by various Museums and exhibitions, so that is another quantity that he is prevented to look at
But if the amount of weaponry and accessory obects he holds is a matter for your preoccupation, i can phone the girl at the Amoreiras shop and ask her for the right number.
After all, and if the business is on the basis of presumption, i would advance that your kukris collection, as big as it may be, would fit in one of the drawers at his mannor house ... don't take it bad .
And once you mentioned something about sword blades, i can tell you about a certain rapier blade that i bought the other day in a flea market and have posted in this Forum for apreciation. I had bought the thing for 50 euros and, when i showed it to him for identification, i don't know what he found in it that he offered me for it 500 euros discount in any piece i wanted to pick at his shop. This blade was surely usefull for him, as he told me that he had lots of others kept in "big bertha " cannon shells ... you know these, don't you ? No need to tell he is a rather wealthy guy, and he surely buys anything interesting that moves around.
All the best
fernando

[fernando]

Sorry, this was a double up

[fernando]

Originally Posted by ariel

Fernando,
Re: slanted quillons.
For the life of me, I cannot remember where I got this info from originally. I've heard it mentioned casually so many times that I assumed it was just a well known and trivial piece of info.
If I am wrong, than I also apologize.

Hi Ariel,
I am feeling sort of uncomfortable with so many apologies
The fact that i am contemplated with postings from a God's lion in my threads is quite a prize for me. I am no academic. I will consider your assumption on this subject good enough for me, until something otherwise proves the contrary.

fernando