The pommel does seem old, the leather of course less so on the hilt, but that is normal. I have seen grips where one finger does grab onto the top of the guard yes, would give good tip control.
Personally I am inclined from the photos available to believe the blade has not been reshaped. I have seen a few pointy takouba and there are also plenty of pointy forms in the region which this hilt could overlap with. For example:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14500
Hopefully Colin can chime in here as it is a bit hard to tell from the photos?
The style of this doesn't really surprise me, so many odd short swords with cultural crossovers occur in this region, I am most interested in the lizard as it seems like a strong visual motif that could possibly be solidly tied to a particular ethnic group.