Tulwar: solid silver handle.
 

New arrival: tulwar with absolutely crappy short (-ened?) blade made out of soft and rusty iron. The edge has more rolls than Africa has tse-tse flies. Out of curiosity I polished and etched a section: no pattern at all. It is poorly secured in the handle with some tar ( not the traditional mastique). Summary: junk.
But the handle is something else: it had spots of black tarnish that was easily removed with a silver cleaner, Completely intact, with several small and superficial scars. The ends of langets are decorated and there are decorative " rings" at the upper and lower borders of the grip. .
I took it to the jeweller: it is solid silver 98% purity.

Would like to pick your brains:
I have never seen a solid silver tulwar handle. Have you?
I guess it is North India. Mughals? Rajputs?
Any guesses about its age?

Ariel, I once owned a tulwar with a silver hilt, it was not solid, in the sense that it was silver from one side to the other, but it was true silver, not plated. Fabrication was the same as other tulwar hilts, a fabricated shell filled with jabung (cutler's wax)

Alan,
I guess you mean there was a cavity in your handle?
Of course , mine has it too. One needs to stick a tang somewhere:-)
What I mean, the entire metal is 98% silver.
Pity you do not have yours anymore: I would love to compare the patterns.

I got rid of mine years ago, along with a lot of other nondescript sort of stuff.

I have had, and still do have some tulwar hilts that are not affixed to blades, they all seem to be made in the same way:- a shell is fabricated and then that shell is filled with the jabung/cutler's wax/resin --- or whatever, and the tang goes into that. The silver one I had was no different, a fabricated hollow shell full of gunk.

I now understand what you mean by 'solid silver'. Thank you.

Ariel, fleur-de-lys decoration can be found on many different hilt types, and in different variations, as you can see in my catalogue.
I have a few silver hilted tulwars, and two of the have fleur-de-lys decoration on the disc.

Jens,
Many thanks!
So they do exist. The questions of attibution and age still need to be solved.

Back to the books.
And if anybody here has any ideas, I shall be grateful for any hint.

The ones I have seen are from Rajasthan - if I remember correctly. Oh yes, 'solid' silver hilts do exist, Khalili also shows one in his vol. XXI catalogue.

The age can vary a lot from 17th to 19th century
The hilt below is of steel and 17th to 18th century.

Hello Ariel,

I'm far away from being an expert as Jens, so I sadly cannot add something important.

I only have a question, are you sure about the low quality of the steel?
A poor blade would produce cracks or breakouts if it hits something like dry bone or iron. Small(!) rolls are normally a sign for an overstrained edge of good quality. If the blade has been made from poor iron, it would bend during contact and it is almost impossible to straighten it out perfectly, because of tensions in the metal. If there are no bendings, I dont believe in poor iron.
The widened ricasso reminds me in older Indian blades. The Japanese like point looks strange, perhaps the blade was shortened during its active time.
No pattern is also strange for an old blade. These blades are often scarf welded, so it would make sense, to polish a window close to the hilt.
I have one scarf welded Tulwar with the front section made from fine laminated monosteel. It is very difficult to impossible to bring out the forging pattern. This depends on the number of layers. The more layers, the more difficult it is. If your Tulwar was folded more than 18-20 times, it is impossible to bring out the structure with an etchant!

You also can sharpen two or three inches of the edge and see how sharp you can make it and how sensitive the edge is, in sense of how it reacts to rough and fine sandpaper or waterstone. But this is more for quite experienced users.


Best wishes,
Roland

Thanks Roland! Something to think about...

Jens,
Complete off-top: the handle you show has " kissing cranes" ( or whatever these chicken are) on the D-guard.
Pant shows the same pattern in his book, as a separate picture and attributes it to Marwar. Any thoughts about the veracity of that assertion? I have one tulwar with similar handle, and was looking for a long time for a confirmation ( or refutation) of his claim.

Hi Ariel:-),
Maybe you know this already, but you may find others being bigger fans of Pant that I am.
I am not sure the 'kissing' cranes are from where he said, but I dont know from where they are - yet.
As to the hilt, what about this one?

I am not a great fan of Pant either.
But even broken watch shows perfectly correct time twice a day:-)))

I have a 'solid' silver hilted tulwar but sadly the hilt is incomplete