Kaskara?? Expensive to say the least.

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by Richard G

...
PS. I bet the auctioners are still reeling!

Laughing and partying all the way to the bank. Not a bad return for a few minutes work. I've heard of someone who was expecting to pay a couple grand , and resell it at a profit. The auction listing just describes the inscriptions as 'a yellow metal', not gold.

[Kmaddock]

For those that did not see, the auction guide price was 200-400 Pounds
Happy Christmas to someone!!

Regards

Ken

[Battara]

Originally Posted by kronckew

The auction listing just describes the inscriptions as 'a yellow metal', not gold.

I've noticed that in order not to get into trouble, dealers and auction houses won't list "silver" or "gold" because they don't bother to test the material or have the testing kits. "German silver" and bronze when polished look like silver or gold, so they list the metal details ambiguously.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Battara

I've noticed that in order not to get into trouble, dealers and auction houses won't list "silver" or "gold" because they don't bother to test the material or have the testing kits. "German silver" and bronze when polished look like silver or gold, so they list the metal details ambiguously.

That is a very astute and well placed note. Those tend to make things complicated.

[Edster]

This is truly a mystery kaskara. The auction pre-bid price is about right for a fine, but not great kaskara. So the seller didn't think it was exceptional, likely unaware of its true provenance. Once seen by the major bidders its significance emerged, and they bid it far beyond even the best Ali Dinar types, the highest in Sudanese origin kaskara quality. What may the inscriptions tell us??

[ariel]

Is the potential provenance to Ail Dinar, frankly a minor personality on the world arena of the 20th century sufficient to justify the expense of 130,000 GBP?

Am I missing something?

[Jim McDougall]

That was the point I think, the Ali Dinar examples were just significant as a important in post Mahdiyya/ Omdurman Sudan. While relatively unimportant in comparison obviously to the Mahdi and Khaliph, he was quite important in the Sudan, and that's what this is about. Not just the precious metal possibility, but what the inscription says may be the explanation.

[TVV]

Until someone is kind enough to let us know what the blade inscription says, we can only speculate.

It takes at least two people to arrive at the hammer price, one of which may have been willing to exceed 100k GBP and another who was willing to pay an amount very close to that. So more than one person saw something very special about this sword and it almost certainly has to do with the blade.

It may be just me being ignorant, but I had not heard about this auction house before. It is not one that seems to specialize in arms and armor. For two major collectors or dealers to find this particular sword, sandwiched between lots of a 20th century military drum and a bottle of Johnny Walker from 2016 and bid it up this high is most unusual.

This all assumes the price displayed is correct.

[Tim Simmons]

I am going to sound really ignorant. I feel sure other members may have the same feelings. I have some questions. Why is it that such high status owner or owners accept such crude file work on the blade. Are we saying that prominent people, Sudanese rulers , have less atheistic views than other cultures? Without testing the yellow metal could well be brass . There was a very yellow low tarnish brass forget the name. Just seems odd to me that such crude work is seen as so special. Yes it has quite nice silver on the grip.

[thinreadline]

Originally Posted by TVV

Until someone is kind enough to let us know what the blade inscription says, we can only speculate.

It takes at least two people to arrive at the hammer price, one of which may have been willing to exceed 100k GBP and another who was willing to pay an amount very close to that. So more than one person saw something very special about this sword and it almost certainly has to do with the blade.

It may be just me being ignorant, but I had not heard about this auction house before. It is not one that seems to specialize in arms and armor. For two major collectors or dealers to find this particular sword, sandwiched between lots of a 20th century military drum and a bottle of Johnny Walker from 2016 and bid it up this high is most unusual.

This all assumes the price displayed is correct.

Its a fairly minor and non specialist auction house run by Anita Manning who makes regular appearances on British 'popular' TV entertainment antiques programmes such as 'Flog It' and 'Bargain Hunt' .