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Klop
4th February 2026, 01:04 PM
Dear members,

a friend of mine acquired this very nice, most likely Albanian khanjar. Happy for him:D

At the base of the blade there is some gold arabic calligraphy on one side, searching your help for the translation. If there is a year number I don't see it...

Also the scabbard seems to have a silver proof, maybe this indicates a region or timeframe?

thanks in advance,
Eric.

Bob A
4th February 2026, 04:23 PM
The stamp on the scabbard may be some sort of tughra?

Klop
4th February 2026, 05:07 PM
The stamp on the scabbard may be some sort of tughra?

Thanks, Indeed it does have "that look".

btw now I see I made a typo in the title, of course I meant ALbanese.

Ian
6th February 2026, 12:36 AM
...btw now I see I made a typo in the title, of course I meant ALbanese. Fixed. :D

serdar
7th February 2026, 11:47 PM
Dear members,

a friend of mine acquired this very nice, most likely Albanian khanjar. Happy for him:D

At the base of the blade there is some gold arabic calligraphy on one side, searching your help for the translation. If there is a year number I don't see it...

Also the scabbard seems to have a silver proof, maybe this indicates a region or timeframe?

thanks in advance,
Eric.

Hy, that is a sultans thugra which was placed by goldsmiths for purity of silver, which specific thugra is i dont know it is very hard to seriously tell, it looks like Mahmud 2, but no one serious could caim that it is.

About "writing" my translator who is a profesor of ottoman turkish and persian cant read anything, there are leters but they dont make anything, there is a lot of "giberish" writing, very few smiths were able to write in those days.

But one question, why everyone call this type of ottoman dagger Albanian!?

I never ever heard from any collector or person from Albania that this is albanian dagger.
Most albanian daggers had a silver hilt, not ivory, and not this style.

Pertinax
8th February 2026, 03:31 PM
Hy, that is a sultans thugra which was placed by goldsmiths for purity of silver, which specific thugra is i dont know it is very hard to seriously tell, it looks like Mahmud 2, but no one serious could caim that it is.

About "writing" my translator who is a profesor of ottoman turkish and persian cant read anything, there are leters but they dont make anything, there is a lot of "giberish" writing, very few smiths were able to write in those days.

But one question, why everyone call this type of ottoman dagger Albanian!?

I never ever heard from any collector or person from Albania that this is albanian dagger.
Most albanian daggers had a silver hilt, not ivory, and not this style.

I agree.

The handle shape is Ottoman.

Klop
13th February 2026, 09:25 AM
thanks gents!

About the Albanian attribution, I think it's a parrot thing; we hear and see it everywhere so it becomes common practice to copy it - without knowing or even thinking about whether it's right or wrong.

Kind regards,
Eric