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Post by Kilted Cossack on Apr 4, 2013 13:21:46 GMT
hussar:
A couple of questions. First, what differentiates the historical accuracy between the two? The use of wood vice the faux horn?
Second---and to me, the more interesting question: Just what IS a Turco-Mongol saber? I associate the style Johnsson reproduced with the Charlemagne saber, and think its generally attributed to the Avars. (Weren't the Avars generally supposed to be not Turkish but Turkic?) Were the Magyar sabers longer and more curved than the Turco-Mongolian sabers? Vice versa? Or longer and straighter? I don't mean to be a pest, but I'm fascinated by Central Asia in general, the Mongols in particular, and Central Asian derived sabers with some even greater particularity.
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 4, 2013 17:57:02 GMT
I'm not concerned with 100% historical accuracy. I want to start making my own swords soon. I need a decent example to work from. That's all I'm looking for. I don't know how good a representation a sub-$300 replica is, but it should give me an idea. It'd be nice if there was a place to look at originals and their dimensions.
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Post by Elheru Aran on Apr 4, 2013 20:00:06 GMT
The Cold Steel is pretty much a, how do I put it, "typical for the period and place but not meant to represent any single weapon" type sword. It's more or less a 18th century (I believe) Persian saber with some Turkish stylings. Edit to add: This is a splendid site for antique scimitars... www.oriental-arms.com/ The Ethnographic Arms forum at Vikingsword also has many excellent pieces in the members' collections.
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 4, 2013 20:21:07 GMT
What I mean by "good example" is one that has the proper weight, thickness, and balance. As far as historical accuracy is concerned, it's a tricky concept. Swords were not mass-produced items in the modern sense. Each one was individually forged. They varied as much as the people that carried them. To me, a sword that looks exactly like another is historically inaccurate.
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Apr 4, 2013 20:24:04 GMT
Well, all I know is Dave Kelly recommends the CS Shamshir as a good option for people interested in the curved and slashy side of the sword business. I'd figure that would be a good place to start, just on his recommendation.
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 4, 2013 20:29:36 GMT
There we have it. On a related note, I saw some videos on Cossack swordsmanship in which the demonstrators used shamshirs.
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Post by Elheru Aran on Apr 5, 2013 14:39:32 GMT
Scimitars or scimitar-like sabers were pretty common for the early Cossacks, IIRC. Part of that whole thing where they had a lot of influence from the Ottomans due to the close proximity of the Ukraine/Georgian steppes and the Black Sea territories of the Turks. The shashqua is a later weapon for them, probably a development of a long knife related to the yataghan.
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 5, 2013 15:47:08 GMT
The way I understand it, the shasqua was a tool, sort of like a machete, that was adapted into a weapon. Then, the Russians started making sabers with shasqua-ish hilts. That's what most replicas are.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Apr 6, 2013 5:01:41 GMT
"Turco-Mongol sabre" is a very broad term. It covers all sorts of sabres from Magyar sabres (like the Charlemagne sabre, the Johnsson sabre up-thread, and their relatives from Crimea and Ukraine) through to what are basically Chinese dao.
I don't know of a good English language source for info. Iaroslav Lebedynsky, "De l'épée Scythe au sabre Mongol", Errance, Paris, 2008, is a good comprehensive book, but in French. The only downside of the book, other than being in French for those who don't read French is that it has almost all drawings rather than photos. You might find it worthwhile just for the wealth of drawings.
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Apr 6, 2013 13:25:48 GMT
I've been a saber nut for a good long while, and of course "saber" covers a whole lot of territory, a whole lot of blade and guard forms. I'm starting to really like these early sabers. I'm pretty sure that this basic form lasted a long while among the Tatars, as I've seen references to 17th century sabers (frequently of Armenian make, out of Lvov) that very closely resemble Johnsson's early saber.
I see a lot of kinship between, say, a liu ye dao and an Avar saber, and I plan to end up with a themed collection: The Saber and Its Evolution.
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 6, 2013 19:55:50 GMT
That collection would be huge. Also, are you restricting the term "saber" to curved blades, or does it include "backswords" like the 1796 british heavy cavalry saber? Tachi, uchigatana, and katana could be considered sabers as well. The German Langemesser, and Messer, could fall under the term, and were used in a very "saber-like" fashion. Then, you have the Swiss, two handed sabers.
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Apr 6, 2013 23:22:37 GMT
Well . . . any collection has the possibility of spiraling out of control. My plan is to obtain a "representative sample" of sabers, using the working definition from a thread at Vikingsword.com: "a sidearm with a long curved blade and a asymmetric grip often bent towards the forward quillon, which has no pommel as a sword but can have a pommel cap instead. (Heribert Seitz Blankwaffen 1 p 183)."
I've got a Chilean 1871 (I think) cavalry saber, of French production, the Hanwei Charlemagne saber, the CS 1796, and four indeterminate saber blades that were blowtorched loose from the hilt (grr, grr, but hey, I got 'em cheap). I know I'll need a kilic and a liu ye dao, probably a Napoleonic era light cav saber, a US Civil War saber and "something sixteenth-seventeenth century." Then I keep on rolling as need be.
No katanas (unless I mod one), no Messers, no Swiss sabers. (At least, not now.)
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Apr 6, 2013 23:45:27 GMT
The hilt style was very conservative. Blades evolved a lot more; many of the late (e.g., 18th century) ones have blades with profiles like shamshir blades (but often double-edged for the last third).
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 7, 2013 0:26:31 GMT
How do you like that 1796?
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Apr 7, 2013 0:44:04 GMT
The good, the bad and the ugly----backwards.
The ugly: The only thing I think you could call ugly about the 1796 is the leather of the grip, and that's probably stretching things.
The bad: It's heavy and unbalanced, compared with other sabers in the rotation. Mostly, I'd say it's unbalanced and it feels heavy. The grip follows the curve of the blade, without that "asymmetrical canted grip" from my definition above. That might be historically accurate for the 1796 (although when I squint at some pictures of the real thing I can see a canted grip, sometimes), but it's not what I'm looking for in a saber.
The good: Pretty much everything else. It's well and tightly put together, the guard is substantial, solid and roomy, the blade displays some (if not enough, and too linear) distal taper, the blade is sharpened (with a secondary bevel) and seems to show good temper. The scabbard is steel, heavy, well made, and fits well (although not to a "hang upside down and shake it" level). I got mine as an A level second, for $140 including shipping, and for that, it was a steal, and if another one came up I'd be sorely tempted to grab it too.
As it is, I'll fall back on somethign Dave Kelly has said about saber repros: it's a good sword, if not a good replica. I will be hacking and chopping on it until I can thrash it into something I like better. If I had had my druthers, I'd have gotten one with the leather sheath, not the steel scabbard.
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 7, 2013 0:47:37 GMT
Some sabers were historically heavy and unbalanced, like the 1796 hcs. The specs on KOA show quite a bit of taper on the 1796.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Apr 7, 2013 2:18:39 GMT
1796HCS replicas are typically heavy and unbalanced. The real thing is usually 1.05-1.1kg, which I wouldn't call heavy for 35" of blade. Lighter than the P1890 sword, its successor a century later (over 1.2kg).
That is heavier than most sabres, which tend to be quite light swords, but IMO the 1796HCS does not deserve its reputation as a heavy and unbalanced brutal cleaver.
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 7, 2013 2:42:05 GMT
Do you have an original to take measurements from timo?
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Post by Kilted Cossack on Apr 7, 2013 2:45:11 GMT
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Post by Onimusha on Apr 7, 2013 3:00:03 GMT
Know of something like that for the HCS?
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