Ethnographic Arms & Armour - Indian shirt sword of rare? form

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Indian shirt sword of rare? form

I recently purchased a lot of Indian weaponry. There was a couple of nice weapons in there, but also some odd ones. This particular sword is sturdy and quite heavy. The blade is 68cm long the whole sword 80cm. There is wood used to fit the grip. There is no ricasso. Thing is I can't seem to find a comparable sword in any of my literature, with the las third of the blade pointing upwards like that.

What are your thought on this sword regarding age and origin.

Hi Drabant, to me this sword is just the result of a smith throwing a sword-like blade on to a hilt they happened to have lying around. The hilt is north indian, 19th century in form. Based on how simple it is, the blade is probably late 19th century specifically. By the late 19th century, it was easier for smiths to take preexisting sheets of metal and discreetly form them to the rough shape of a blade than forge out an entire, traditional-style saber blade. The pommel was probably repaired on the hilt around this time too. It (the disc) is thinner than it should be, and based on your images has been mounted incorrectly (unevenly/not centered) on the hilt, all evidence of crude 19th century fabrication.

One can find numerous such amalgamations of old hilts and vaguely sword-like blades on sites like ebay, where people that have inherited old shops will just attach the two and try to sell them off to buyers that don't know any better.

Clearly, someone still found it to be noteworthy enough to catalogue it, which is what the markings on the pommel are from. However, it is atypical in form because it was informally made, not because it is of an exceptional design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nihl (Post 275985)

Thanks for your thoughts, sounds plausible. And its not an exceptional sword design. If it where there would be a lot of them. I cant see any benifits of this design in combat, its to short to poke with, also the weird hook at the end would just make it even harder. I cant se it be a good slashing weapon either, it is to heavy and straight.Maybe the blade was ones longer and reforged into this because it was damaged :shrug:

I think it is just a formerly normal NW Indian Talwar with repaired ( shortened) blade. The distal part of the blade is of such an awkward and unusual form that invoking the role of a village smith forging something new would be an unneeded exaggeration.