Tabouka ? blade markings - makers mark ?

[Emanuel]

Quite right Henk

I had already edited my post to only say what I paid for it and sold I guess I'll remove that as well.

[Lee]

From your pictures, which I have taken the liberty of quoting below, I would opine that this is a genuine ethnographic specimen of fairly typical quality. The pommel does appear to have some age and is of an older form. The leather looks somewhat newer than that age from the photo, but aging would be less out of the Sahara and photos may be quite deceptive. (Indeed our tour leader on one of the trips cautioned that leather work that had been in that environment for 5 years would often appear to have an age of 50 years.)

That harsh environment is not one that leads to accumulation of much material wealth and fairly simple takoubas such as this one seem to be what is actually worn on a daily basis out in the desert.

The silver mounted ones I have pictured are, I suspect, a fairly recent silversmith's innovation in response to greater wealth among urbanized Tuareg; I doubt any that I have seen were assembled longer ago than 20 years. However, while these swords are new, the blades contained within them are often old heirlooms (for example, the 21st century sword in the logo above is built around a 17th century blade of European origin).

[dugsey]

Hey Guys

Many thanks for all the help and information, and yes Emanuel, I will post some more pictures when I get back from holiday in a weeks time. Am a bit pressed for time at the moment !