While I am usually eager to acknowledge that some of the pieces in my collection are contemporary replicas, with all due respect I have to disagree with your assessment of this being a tourist item. It is true that the chasing could very well be of a later date (as indicated in my original post). However, chased areas appear to be patinated uniformly with the rest of the blade, which leads me to believe that it was done when the sword was still intended for its original purpose. The blade overall is quite worn. There are not too many nicks but it was clearly sharpenned and re-sharpenned many times over. And most steel loss associated with sharpenning corresponds with the so called "sweet spot". Ofcourse this could be an indication of the previous owner's kids using it to whack bushes in the backyard but that we will never know
Comparing to other swords I have handled or owned, this tulwar is one of the older ones. If I could venture a guess, I would say 18th to early 19th century but it could be much older. The overall form and some peculiarities (i. e. animal hide on the scabbard) point at the Indian northern frontier/Afganistan border as being the origin but this is just my speculation.
In conclusion, I will say that I can see how pictures taken with an iPhone make it difficult to see many features of the item in question. I will try to take some better pics with my DSLR camera over the weekend and will add them to this thread for further review.
Thank you all,
Stan