A Nice Takouba just finished on eBay....Euro blade?

Paul Digard · 22nd December 2006, 05:41 PM

Well what about this then? Two kaskaras (one mine, not pictured) and a Scottish basket hilt with near as dammit identical blades. Engraved decoration so similar I think they must be from the same source. Pictures and a little bit of input over on SFI.

1st posting

ELJay's input

Sorry for the myriad links to see all the pics. Unfortunately I lost the photos of mine in a computer crash, but it really is almost indistinguishable from the other two except for a greater degree of wear.

Anyway, not that I doubt Artzi & ElJay (too much

) but if these are North African made blades, how many did they produce to make it likely I'd see three within as many years? I can accept a Solingen cutler banging out industrial quantities of blades (witness the thousands of very similar JJ Runkel retailed Georgian military blades still around). Was bladesmithing in North Africa similarly grouped into a few large volume producers? I know shallow fullered blades struck with crescent moons are very common but perhaps naively, had imagined that every local smith would have his variant of the stamp.

Paul

22nd December 2006, 05:41 PM	#33
Paul Digard Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 13	Three nearly identical blades Well what about this then? Two kaskaras (one mine, not pictured) and a Scottish basket hilt with near as dammit identical blades. Engraved decoration so similar I think they must be from the same source. Pictures and a little bit of input over on SFI. 1st posting ELJay's input Sorry for the myriad links to see all the pics. Unfortunately I lost the photos of mine in a computer crash, but it really is almost indistinguishable from the other two except for a greater degree of wear. Anyway, not that I doubt Artzi & ElJay (too much ) but if these are North African made blades, how many did they produce to make it likely I'd see three within as many years? I can accept a Solingen cutler banging out industrial quantities of blades (witness the thousands of very similar JJ Runkel retailed Georgian military blades still around). Was bladesmithing in North Africa similarly grouped into a few large volume producers? I know shallow fullered blades struck with crescent moons are very common but perhaps naively, had imagined that every local smith would have his variant of the stamp. Paul Last edited by Paul Digard; 23rd December 2006 at 12:40 AM. Reason: typo