Interesting cutlass on ebay

ariel · 31st May 2006, 05:42 PM

Tough call.
This is a style of South European swords: from Tyrol and Styria , to Venice, to Croatia...
You can see similat in Jan Sach's book " Illustriertes lexikon der hieb-& stich-waffen" Karl Muller Verlag, 1999 and , especially , in "Ubojite Ostrice" , Gornja Stubica 2003, often sold on e-bay under "croatian arms and armor" or such. They all are dated 16th (sic!)century,have flat and often curved quillons, heavy iron hemispherical pommel, very ofted shell guard and , also very often, the hilt complex is decorated with simple incisions.
If this is the case, you should be unconsolable: you missed a treasure!!!
On the other hand, I suspect that a lot of such weapons may be professionally made copies. I do not like the careless spine of the blade, the strange marking ("2"?) absence of wear on the blade, "scratchy" quillons and the obvious heaviness of the sword (5 lbs is a hell of a weight for a fighting sword!). On yet another hand (we are transforming into Shiva

), the wood does show a lot of age and the presence of leather is encouraging
I guess the only way would be to handle it and see whether the blade is properly tempered, well balanced or is a dead, heavy clunker, and many other things.
We shall not know it: the sword went to somebody else. From now on you will wake up at night, in the personal hell of all collectors who think they missed their Dream Blade. I've been there many times and you have my sympathy and empathy. You have us as a support group .

The big question: what if the new owner decides to put it on the market? Will you buy it?

31st May 2006, 05:42 PM	#2
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Tough call. This is a style of South European swords: from Tyrol and Styria , to Venice, to Croatia... You can see similat in Jan Sach's book " Illustriertes lexikon der hieb-& stich-waffen" Karl Muller Verlag, 1999 and , especially , in "Ubojite Ostrice" , Gornja Stubica 2003, often sold on e-bay under "croatian arms and armor" or such. They all are dated 16th (sic!)century,have flat and often curved quillons, heavy iron hemispherical pommel, very ofted shell guard and , also very often, the hilt complex is decorated with simple incisions. If this is the case, you should be unconsolable: you missed a treasure!!! On the other hand, I suspect that a lot of such weapons may be professionally made copies. I do not like the careless spine of the blade, the strange marking ("2"?) absence of wear on the blade, "scratchy" quillons and the obvious heaviness of the sword (5 lbs is a hell of a weight for a fighting sword!). On yet another hand (we are transforming into Shiva ), the wood does show a lot of age and the presence of leather is encouraging I guess the only way would be to handle it and see whether the blade is properly tempered, well balanced or is a dead, heavy clunker, and many other things. We shall not know it: the sword went to somebody else. From now on you will wake up at night, in the personal hell of all collectors who think they missed their Dream Blade. I've been there many times and you have my sympathy and empathy. You have us as a support group . The big question: what if the new owner decides to put it on the market? Will you buy it?