My first Tulwar

[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