Greetings! Having had enough with BoS, no go juice in car, and dealing with a most disgreeable cleaning lady...I find myself stuck in front of the computer with no escape in sight, I find myself pondering weapons...:evil: I was wondering if anyone else out there collects steel? Currently my collection holds an alleged WWI bayonet. I'm not sure of it's background, if any. I say it's WWI because the crossguard curves up toward the blade, the handle is wood. The type of curve in the crossguard is well suited for turning away other blades, but seems suspiciously well-suited to face a sabre. By WWII sabres were fairly rare in military use--tho the Japanese officers still carried steel. Also on the back ridge of the blade there is a crescent moon stamped, alongside it is a star outline..it's a bit rubbed, so I can't tell if it's a five or six-pointed star. I'm all but convinced it's not American in origin. Anyone else out there have any ideas? I also have a Fillipino wagazashit-type blade. circa WWII I was told it was a cane knife, but I showed it to a master Weaponsmith, and he said it was something more. He said the handle was too fancy for just a plain cane knife. It's got fantastic balance, but it's not the best quality steel. Nor is it the worst. Holds an edge just fine. I also have a non-functional Toledo style short sword. Shiny, and pretty, but sheerly for looks. Nice etchings in the blade. Beyond that, my collection holds a number of not so unique items. A cheap Pakistani steel cutlass type blade. Several daggers, one set of adjustable balance throwing knives, and various folding and pocket knives. Most of them are cool, but not really noteworthy. But let's not forget ye olde Swiss Army Knife. So, any collectors out there, or am I the only psycho here?
Wow, nice collection. I love historic relics, and would love to own some memorabilia from the WW's or the most interesting war to date in my mind, The War of Northern Agression. What I collect now are guns, but alas, I have no antiques. I'm hoping to inherit my grandfather's guns. He's got a double-barrel rabbit-ear 12 guage shotgun, circa 1920. Nothing special, but old just the same. Oh yeah, one other item that has always fascinated me are pocket watches. Old ones. I guess it stems from me as a young child, watching my now-deceased great-grandfather pull his out in church, look at it, snap the cover back closed.... Memories. Plus my fascination wasn't hurt any when I visited a friend in Alabama who has several pocket watches over 100 years old, a couple that dated back to the civil war. Ooops, I meant the War of Northern Agression.
It's a small collection for now. I don't have the funding to do any heavy collecting, but I'm currently looking to add a battle axe or three to the collection. Another thing I've seen, but haven't had the chance to get a hold of are the WWI trench knives. It can even be a reproduction, I just like them. Ever seen one? They're usually double edged, like a dagger. With a brass handle. Essentially, they're brass knuckles with a blade attached to the top. They also usually have a butting spike on the end. For the most part, I lean toward functional blades. Anything else is just a wall decoration. I like old guns. 19th century are my favorites, but I know very little about them. I go for melee weapons, myself. The ones that fascinate me are the type of pistols that Josey Wales carried in the movie. I like those, and old repeating rifles. The other thing that fascinates me is the Gatling Gun. Nearly 200 years and the design has changed very little. A girl I dated had a father who collected guns. The only thing more fascinating than the collection itself was the house he kept it in. It's a fairly old lakefront house, built on the side of a mountain. In the living room there was a huge boulder that was part of the mountain, with a small lighted pool. It was as if the house was built around the mountain. What was even more fascinating were all the secret passageways and rooms that housed most of his guns. He had hundreds of them. Everything from M1 Garands, to a Vietnam era M-60 machine gun. The bulk of his collection were hunting rifles. I'd never seen so many guns in one place, short of an armory He even had a secret room where he packed his rounds. I've always been fond of pocket watches. I don't think they should ever have gone out of style. But I say the same thing about cloaks..~wink~
The bayonet depicting the cresent moon may be arabic in origin, the symbol is very popular in middle eastern cultures, as is evident on the many national flags of said region. Here is a link to a great site for traditional samurai blades forged in accordance with the highest standards known to masters of the craft, a custom ordered blade takes up to a year to complete. These blades are functional and very expensive, the average non custom blade is around $900-$1500(US) custom weapons are more. Sorry if this is out of your price range Tair Nean, but their fun to look at nonetheless. http://www.bugei.com/
I have a friend who collect knifes, he got this totaly awesome knife same kind that the gurkas use. SWEET Hmm when it comes to antiqs my old uncle had a 1920 model harley.
Sweeeet sounding house your g/f's dad has. Would love to walk thru there and look at his guns. The M1 Garand. If I ever spend a massive amount of money on an old gun, it would be the M1. Saw one recently that was original, all the way, and it was valued at about 20-30 thousand. As far as knives go, I've got one knife that my grandpa gave me. It was military issue, from his days in the army. That sucker is huge. It's at least a foot long, with blood-grooves, good and heavy. No idea what it'd be worth.
My dad has his father's old pocket watch, and I think it's the coolest thing on the planet. (Okay, maybe not, but it is cool.) I love popping it open and looking at the gears. Trouble is, some one stole the (gold) chain that went with it and broke the glass on the face. In terms of knives and guns, I think that old swords are really cool. Like the WWII Samurai swords, (not just from WWII, but I know that some Japanese carried theirs) and the midieval swords that you see in museums. Sorta off topic, but don't you guys think that museums is a hard word to spell?
That's what I was thinking too, but I took another look at the symbol, and it's in fact a six-pointed star, like the Star of David. Seems unlikely that would be on an Arabic blade. The other thing that sways me is that for the most part, Arabics favour curved blades, even in the smaller knife-like blades. Someone said it could hail from Muslim Spain or Portugal too. I really have no idea.. Here, here! Great site! Thanks for the link. But you know, it may be out of my price range, but for a well-crafted, functional, custom blade; it'd be worth every penny to me. (EDIT: A shame there aren't more detailed images there. Incredible stuff, however.) You'll hear no argument from this end. Two rifles I covet and would love to get a hold of are the M-1 Garand, and the Springfield. Both fantastic weapons, both durable, and accurate. Last I heard, snipers were still using the Springfield on occasion. I know it was still in use during Vietnam. 20-30,000. Damn. That's a whole lotta greenbacks. Hell, that would get me nicely out of debt, and leave me some money for smoke. It's a shame I don't talk to her anymore. Her mother despised me. But as far as I know, her father liked me. Don't even know if he still lives there. While I adore Samurai swords..just for the sheer craftsmanship they contain, Swordmaking was/is nearly a religion in itself to those craftsmen--get one with a good edge and you have a truly functional piece of art-- I lean toward the European swords. Specifically, those of Celtic origin. I love the old Celtic Leaf blades, but they're a little small for my tastes, not that they're any less deadly, especially in the right hands. I'm a big guy. I go more for the broadsword, hand-and-a-half swords, and of course, my personal favorite: The Claidigh-Mor.( for those of you who don't recognize the Gaelic spelling, that's Claymore, which quite literally translates into Great Sword. Even pronounced the same way. Gotta love Gaelic.) The Claidigh-Mor was in my opinion, one of the most fiendishly effective weapons to come out of the middle ages. Designed by the Scots, for de-horsing English cavalry, and facing pole-arms, the weapon was sheer genius. If they could've been made to Japanese standards, or of Damascus Steel, I think all of Great Britain would be speaking Scots now. There were a few different varieties of Claidigh-Mor. Most common was the basket-hilt broad sword, that's sometimes referred to as a Claidigh-Mor. That's not a great-sword to my mind. Those of you who've seen Braveheart, are familiar with another variety. Wallace's big shiny leather wrapped sword was a Claidigh-Mor. (I hope you all don't mind my rambling. Swords, and particularly this sword are a passion of mine.) My favorite variation, (and the most effective, to my mind) is one with the V-shaped cross-guards. Just above the tang, is wrapped in leather. Just above the leather, are two spurs on each side of the blade. The leather allows a higher grip on the weapon, and hence, better control, since it changes the center of gravity for an otherwise ungainly weapon. The spurs and crossguards work in conjunction for trapping, and even breaking weapons. It works something like this: A blade slides down the length of the claidigh-mor, strikes the crossguards. The wielder of the great-sword then twists the blade one way or the other (depending on the side the opposing blade's struck.) The spurs lock the blade in place, while the crossguards catch on the blade. At this point you can either twist the claidigh-mor, and snap the opposing blade, or just turn it aside. The extended handle of a claidigh-mor is usually about 3-4 hand-lengths, leaving a good 4-6 inches of hilt. The pommel was often fitted with a butting spike, for those who got up under the claidigh-mor's defenses. Often, the trefoil-shaped ends of the crossguards were sharpened. One could turn the sword around, and beat someone off a horse with the hilt end. Or hook their neck, (like a man-catcher pole-arm of the same era) and drag them off a horse. Also, in the above example of turning away the blade, one can turn away the blade, then strike with either the crossguard, or the butting spike. You'd think such an ungainly weapon would be slow, and leave an opponent lots of undefended openings. But having fought at least a little with one, this is not always the case. Obviously it depends on who's using the weapon, but the Claidigh-Mor leaves only a few holes in one's defense. Holding the blade upright in front of you, and hunching down slightly, leaves almost no openings. The extended hilt falls well past the waist, and can be used quite effectively to block low strikes, without having to turn the blade down, and leave an even bigger opening for your opponent. Such a long blade gives one a distinct advantage in leverage. I even experimented with a stance, wielding the Claidigh-Mor like a baseball bat. Now that is one stance you'd think would leave you WIDE open. But with such a long blade (5-6 feet) very little can get close enough to do any damage, provided your timing doesn't fail. One-on-one anyway. (EDIT:I forgot to mention, that against a spear, or pole-arm, this stance is quite ineffective. As one might expect. The hunched-over, blade in front stance was most effective against these.) Well...museum isn't as hard to spell as antidisestablishmentarianism, or claidigh-mor for that matter...:grin: Ok, now that I've rambled forever about my obssession with Scottish great swords, I'll post this, before I go rambling even more.
