[Michael Edelson]

Hi all,

I found this in an antique store in North Wales. It is mounted on a bamboo pole, but it's an obvious remount...the socket had to be cut and wrapped around itself to fit the skinny shaft, so it was made for something thicker. It is painted in some sort of thick protective lacquer that gives it its yellowish color.

Does anyone know what this is? Should I buy it? It's not terribly expensive.

[Allan Senefelder]

Michael, the "split" you see in the socket is often visible on spear and other pole arm sockets, and does not necessarily denote resizing ( it fact it probably wasn't). On finer examples it often isn't visible, but there are tons where a quick lap forge weld was done to form the socket and no finish work was done. Based on the decoration my guess would be perhaps Indo-persian or maybe North African (Morocco, Egypt ect.) but doesn't "feel" European to me. I could be wrong of course and hoepfully others will chime in. As far as getting it, is the price nice? A good vintage spear head is always a good thing in my opinion.

[J. Bedell]

Weren't bamboo shafts popular on middle eastern or african spears?

It seems to be a nice find, if it isn't too expensive I would definitely go for it. It may not be medieval but its certaintly an interesting "vintage" piece.

-James

[Michael Edelson]

It's only 65 pounds, or about 130 bucks, but if it's not a remount I can't justify buying it. I would have to remove the spear head from the shaft to transport it home, and I don't want to ruin a complete spear in its original form. Had it been a remount, I would have had no problems breaking off the bamboo and sticking it in my sword case to take home.

[Sean Flynt]

Assegais:

[Jean-Carle Hudon]

Michael,
the Zulu provenance might be very near the mark. The South Wales Borderers served with distinction in that war, and it makes sense that trophies would come back on the boat, a bit like the german nazi stuff the french canadian soldiers brought back from France, the Low Countries and Germany in 45. The other african engagement would be the Sudan with Kitchener,but I don't know if the welsh regiments were called into that one. If you were in North Wales, you could check out the regiments raised around Caernarvon, maybe you could narrow down the probabilities by finding out which regiments served where in those theatres. Nice find.
JCH

[Nathan Beal]

I would second that the shaft is most probably original.

£65 isn't particularly cheap for an unproveneced spearhead. Do a search through Michael D Long's catalogue (http://www.michaeldlong.com/) for spear and there are a number of items in the sub £50 category.

The fact that it is in an antique shop will generally hike the price up (as 'antiques' carry more of a premium) as the dealer would have passed anything worth selling into the specialist trade to get it to the right audience.

Do bear in mind that just because an item has been found in a welsh antique shop doesn't mean it would have anything to do with the welsh regiments, spears from the indo-china region (and if i was pressed i would say North African in this case but wouldn't be suprised if i was way off) where popular keepsakes of the 'tours' taken by victorian gentlemen of substance. And that assumes it has gone form a home to a dealer in one step (very unlikely in my experience)

Ask the dealer of it's provenance, if he can't provide it then don't bother as identification of this kind of item can be very tricky indeed.

HTH
N.