Hello Alan,
you may be correct, I've seen this as well but most of the time in museums or in high end collections. And like said already two times before, I know next to nothing about Indian weapons. And the last thing I intended to do was to offend Silberschatzimsee.
So it is maybe better to say: "What I can see by his pictures I tend to believe that we see here a rather recent item!" And let me add that I hope to be wrong.
Best regards,
Detlef