these date to the 1970s/80s and were retailed along with the 'lion head' Kukris and other types of knives and swords, most with either this type of hilt of hilts of black buffalo horn.
Large hybrid knives with blades that look like a pesh-kabz crossed with a bowie, even 'Sinbad' type swords with broad squared off ends and I particularly remember a strange sword with a blade shaped like a fish (same plating and dot designs to emulate scales and features).
A shop near here seemed to sell the whole range in about 1978-80, so I remember them vividly as a youngster with an eye for exotic knives.
If you look hard enough there are even variants of the lion head Kukri with this type of handle, although they are less common compared to the familiar lion head ones.
They were made in India, produced in large numbers and exported widely.
The dot pattern designs on the nickel plated blade are a bit of a theme on this particular range, They were often sold alongside those black scabbard Sabres with 'India' etched into the blades.
They may have been available in India to those who travel, they were certainly available in the Uk, although for every one of the less common types there seem to have been about a hundred lion-kukris sold in various sizes. So surviving examples of types such as this are not common anymore.
I've seen two of three like this one in the last few years while I've seen over a hundred of the lion-head kukris and prehaps 4 or 5 of the kukri with this type of plated carved/painted hilt in the same time period.
I've never seen one of the fish swords again after that shop stopped selling them so presumably not a big seller!
