It's not much...

Thank you! If I had a liiiiiiiiiittle more space I'd organize the knives by region rather than all willy nilly like they are know.
 
Great Walls of Fire Blue! Whats the one below the little Tibetan Knife? Third one from the bottom on left. Long sweeping blade. When did you slip that one in? VERY cool!
edit... Ah...p.11 I found it. Moroccan Shula! WoW love it!
 
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That's a shula from Morocco, I can't remember if I posted that one or not... It appears to be made out of a cut down saber or bayonet that's been embellished with some pattern on the fuller.



Now, the one on the bottom right is a s'boula, also from Morocco, but some sources say the shula and s'boula are the same thing just different spellings. My shula and s'boula are quite different from each other though, so maybe I misidentified one of them.
 
Very nice that you were able to arrange to get them out of their Scabbards. Don't want to accelerate the rust chances.
Plus that makes for one really "Sharp" in both senses of the word wall. quite a nice collection you got there.
 
That was my motivation, I read leather sheaths/scabbards can promote rust because they keep moisture by the blade, and some of the chemicals they use for tanning can be deleterious too. I'd like room to take all of the knives daggers out of their sheaths too.

Although those scabbards look really bad without the blades in them. They're sort of shapeless. I might cut out some balsawood to shove in them to keep them rigid...
 
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Yep Tanneries in those days killed off the workers there at very young ages due to the compounds they used. I can't imagine that could be good for anything to be in contact with long term. Heck the newer tanneries are still messes and environmental disasters waiting to happen so I doubt the process is really all that much more friendly for big corporate tanning these days. Not sure how the folks who do their own tanning here do it. Probably not be as bad since they probably use much more restraint since they want to live long enough to enjoy their Kuhks LOL. Perhaps Pugs will chime in with some true info about the current evolution of tanned leather used as sheaths causing damage to blades answers.
 
Here's something a little different

View attachment 421208

A Samoan war club! This is a modern tourist piece of course, but I bought it under the assumption that it was made in the traditional methods in Samoa. First thing I noticed when I opened the box was a big "made in indonesia" sticker on it. Oh well. It's still pretty cool but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.
 
Hehe, Makes sense to me. Do you know about the process they use these days or you just happy not to have to mess with it yourself? I can certainly understand either answer LOL, from what I understand it is still a really nasty job to do with some serious chemical dangers. But then I rarely hear from the people who do it, only the activists that think it is a menace to fishes in streams and little owlletts or whatever get news coverage so my info might be slightly biased instead of wholly factual.
 
Bawanna said:
The guard on that Nimcha look remarkably similar to the guards on Howard Wallace's Liberty series knives. Not the handguard part but on the blade.
Click to expand...

I haven't looked into this thread for a while. Just saw your comment.

Good eye.

You are correct. The guard on that old sword was designed to serve the same function as the guards on my liberty series. The trapping and binding function of the forward curving guard has been forgotten by all but a few, in this age of sport fencing.
 
I wonder how these forward curving guards would be used in swordplace... there's only one Nimcha sparring video on youtube and it's two American guys using fake nimchas that don't have guards at all. I don't know if there's anything historical or traditional about their technique either...
 
That illustrates the principle nicely, thankyou.

I'm still curious as to the origins of my Nimcha. It seems that virtually all of them have European blades, but the blade on mine is just super thin. It's 3mm thick. at the base. That's machete territory. The blade is definitely old judging from the patina. There's 3 or 4 fairly deep nicks into the edge towards the tip so it must have seen some blade-on-blade action. The last 3 or 4 inches of the blade is slightly twisted, not sure how that happened. Maybe the tip got lodged in something and it was twisted out.
 
blue lander said:
I wonder how these forward curving guards would be used in swordplay...
Click to expand...

Since Morocco and France have historical ties, I searched for
nimcha epee

and found this French site about the Nimcha:
http://blade.japet.com/N-galerie.htm
http://blade.japet.com/N-protection.htm

N-lame-form.gif

n-poi1.gif


From the page about the "protection" (roughly translated):

"From the onset, the guard offered an effective hand protection against direct hits... Sliding strikes along the back or cutting edge engaged in the quillons where it was blocked or broken... Strikes sliding on the flat of the blade did not meet any defense... To remedy the lack of protection against strikes sliding on the flat of the blade, two types of defense appeared..."


The latter part evidently refers to the function of the little points or bumps at each side of your blade:

IMG_00001150_edit_zpsa817fa3c.jpg

IMG_00001155_edit_zps92834d36.jpg
 
Nice find! That explains it pretty well.

That article says nimcha blades are usually 7mm thick, over twice as thick as mine. But it says indigenous produced blades were fairly straight, heavy and not very flexible. Mine's curved and very flexible. So I wonder where it came from...
 
Guessing a British or French blade, probably discarded when it was twisted then remade by someone broke enough to not be as picky.
 
It's probably as simple as that, but so far I can't find any kind of European saber or backsword from that era that's so thin. I'll keep looking.

There's even a couple shunts jammed into the hilt at the base of the blade to make it fit. The hilt must have been designed for a thicker blade.
 
New arrival today...

View attachment 423369

Cute little guy, judging from the shape and the markings on the blade I'm guessing it's Thai.

View attachment 423370

You usually see markings like this on Post-WW2 dha swords made for tourists, so I assume the origin on this one is the same.

View attachment 423371

It's a pretty well made blade for a tourist knife if that's what it is. Nice distal taper! The tang is sticking out of the hilt quite a bit which does point to careless craftsmanship. However, all the metal fittings on the sheath and blade are fairly loose so I think the wood's shrunk significantly. Maybe the shrinking wooden hilt squeezed the tang out? The tang is rat tail and not full length, When I find a magnet I'll test how far it goes in.

View attachment 423372

The blade was black when it arrived, but I've been able to lighten it up quite a bit with just mineral oil. I'm not sure if the wavy line in this picture is a hamon, but if it is I guess it was differentially tempered. I'm tempted to try acid etching the blade to see what comes out.

View attachment 423373

The sheath's nice enough, but nothing to write home about.
 
Really Cool Blue. What is the size? I am guessing about a 10" blade based on thickness/handle ect? It doesn't appear to be a hamon in the picture. Looks more like it is on the blade than in it, but that could just be the photo or even my pathetic eyesight, (misplaced my reading specs) Not sure I would take a tool to it to find out. curiousity probably won't kill me but messing with the blade and patina just might LOL.
 
I'd say OAL is around 12". I think you're right about there it not being a hamon, it's probably just schmutz on the blade. I'd have to completely destroy the patina to find out for sure. I'll sleep on it (not literally, that'd hurt) but I think I'll just leave it as is.

Two more blades I won that are coming down the pipeline.
View attachment 423469View attachment 423470
First one I thought was a 18th/19th century briquet, but it's actually a Faschinenmesser. Basically a tool used by German soldiers to make fortifications and whatnot. Sort of like a machete. This one's obviously in "relic" condition, but if I can read the markings on the hilt I should be able to tell which German kingdom it came from, which regiment it was issued to, and what year it was made. Probably mid 1800's. It definitely says "83 R", which I believe means it's from the 83rd infantry regiment. It's probably Prussian but I should be able to tell once I can see the markings up close, assuming they aren't all corroded.

View attachment 423471View attachment 423472View attachment 423473

Second one is another Manding sword. This one looks to have a European blade in it unlike my other Manding one. The pictures from the auction aren't very good. Hopefully it'll turn out to be legit.
 
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