Regardless of it's asking price, it's a very well done project. It includes all the standard items and there's not a hint of plastic or resin in sight. The only thing I'm not crazy about are the phurbas. Everything else in the box is a plausible part of a conventional western-style kit, but the spirit knives stand out as something that doesn't fit in. Worse, it's pretty obvious that the brass one is a knock-off of the knife in the (IMHO) vastly underrated movie adaptation of "The Shadow".
Here's a closer look at the contents. One thing in this picture leapt out at me immediately.
Hmmmmm. This is listed in the contents as a "soapstone idol". Curious, that.
Rather than the brass phurba being a "knock-off" of the dagger in "The Shadow", it is a perfectly ordinary genuine design (one of many), while the dagger in "The Shadow" was made as an impressive *physical* weapon -- which a phurba is not supposed to be.
ReplyDeleteThe phurba's true origin and purpose is not a dagger but a *tent stake*, the secure basis of tent-dwelling civilization in mountainous terrain, because it keeps the wind demons from tearing away one's home -- and one can stake demons to the ground with it to keep them from doing harm.
This is why the point and edges of a genuine phurba's blade are not sharp, and the blade itself may be not steel (like the movie's), but brass (like this), meteoric iron, or even wood.
--Raven.