[Jim McDougall]

Thank you for posting link to that thread of 2011 Rick.
I first acquired one of these Afghan military swords back in the late 90s, and quite frankly, few had any idea what they were. I saw references callling them Greek cutlasses? others claimed these must be Spanish because the stamped punzone resembled the 'Pillars of Hercules" as on old Spanish coins.

It seems the stamp was of course to the Blue Mosque at Mazir i Sharif, which was a dynastic state emblem in the reign of Abur Raman Khan, who in the late 1880s under British subsidy created the Mashin Khana in Kabul.

This was an arms factory which was primarily engaged in rifles for the Afghan forces, though it does seem of course that they produced edged weapons as well in these shops. These military style swords were hilted in notably British fashion, and personally I always thought they resembled the style seen in sword type bayonets, perhaps in accord with the rifle production there.

These were apparently supplied to various tribal levees who acted locally in support of British units and police activity apparently resulted in numbers of these style hilts mounted with heirloom tribal Khyber knife blades, which also received the state seal of the Mazir i Sharif symbol.

The interesting knuckle guard with parallel bars and scrolled terminus near pommel is sometimes seen on examples of paluoar which again shows the combining of style elements.

While these swords were not of an official 'regulation' in military sense, they did become a regularly produced pattern of hilt, with variation in blades as noted. While the earlier examples in iron hilt mounts continued into 20th c. it seems that many in brass hilts were around by the 3rd Afghan War (1919).
The ivory or bone hilts probably reflect those to figures of some stature tribally with authority in the capacity as leaders or officers.

My example is pretty rough, dated 1893, and has the deeply channeled blade that seems prevalent on these in most cases, and are remarkably heavy. I have yet to figure where these came from, but likely India. They seem to correspond to very early traditional Indian blades seen on some swords associated with Pathan occupied areas, the so called 'cobra swords' come to mind.