Jade hilted khyber knife

[Marius66]

Dear members,

Here the khyber knife I had the chance to get ,
These are the pictures of.the auctionhouse
I hope I will receive it soon.

The jade hilt is interesting ,
I saw a lot of 1900 and recent peshkabz with this kind of hilt of average quality but I hope this one is a good one
and I just found one indian ''khyber knife'' with jade hilt.

The blade seems good too but has no special decorations or engravings, or damascening .

''Just' a good fighting weapon more than a parade tchi tchi one ??

[Gustav]

There is a chance this might be wootz.

[Sajen]

Would agree with Gustav!

[Marius66]

Thank you for your messages !

Yes it is fine wootz , that's what said the auctionhouse,
Said too it was not common to have a high quality blade and hilt on a ''fighting'' or ''military'' model .
Maybe made for an high rank army member...
I will post pictures when I'll receive it.

[Marius66]

I finallyreceived it,
I'm going to clean it soon and see what's going on with the blade.

Interesting on the scabbard the first 7 holes with fake rubies or some kind of resin. Have any of you ever seen something like this ?

Another thing I wanted to highlight was the small size of this Khyber, 48 cm long. Could it not be a large Indian kard which would then have been mounted with an Afghan military type scabbard at the end of the 19th century?

[Marius66]

A kard like this one ?

[Tim Simmons]

I don't think these grips are of true jade. More likely what is known as Jade Onyx.

[Marius66]

The one I get oh yes,
nephritic jade, certified by the gemologist of the auction house i personnally know since a decade.

I already cleaned it and polished the blade,
Just need to receive etchant to finish the job...

[Marius66]

Here some results using ferric chloride,
few time...

Not the best
but we can see on both side an
homogeneous fine grain structure.
I hope to get some Nital but there are problems with
customs 😬🙃..

[Battara]

Looks like a type of crystalline wootz to me.

Similar to Turkish or India crystalline wootz.

[francantolin]

Wow beautiful blade!!
( and nice job ! )
for the sheath I have already seen an identical one for a Khyber with ivory handle but I cannot put my hand on the picture .
The handle is nice too and not common.
Congrats

[Interested Party]

The one I get oh yes,
nephritic jade, certified by the gemologist of the auction house i personnally know since a decade.
To me the pictures look like nephrite handles. Nice polish on this pretty knife. What grit did you take it to?

[Marius66]

Thank you all for your replies !

It is not made of jadeite jade ( the number one )
But yes good nephritic jade ( certiified as I wrote )

I found this ottoman dagger '' kard'' with a similar jade handle ,
Interesting wootz blade who links with the comment of Battara about Indian or Turkish crystalline wootz .( still thank you )

For the grit, I started with 400 ( they where a lot of scratches /stains , then 600, 800, 1000, 1200 and 1500,
the finest grain I have.
Then etching , ( and sure baking soda neutralisation ! ) results I think would have been better with Nital but I finished my small bottle time ago and can get it again easily 😑