Ed, you are absolutely correct that the quality of the fittings does not match the quality of the blade. Interestingly enough, the hilt has a repair to one of the quillons, so the sword's owner at that time chose to have it soldered as opposed to replaced. I can totally see someone with poor knowledge of traditional hilts attempting a "restoration" on a damaged hilt outside of the culture. Or the owner at some point was in a hurry and decided that a crude hilt is better than no hilt at all.
The nicest hilted kaskara I have has a silver hilt with the comet motive. Ironically, it also has the least interesting blade on all of my kaskaras.
Some years ago Kubur showed a couple of interesting swords with very unusual hilts. They both had really nice old blades. It would be great if they came to us with nice silver hilts, perhaps even with the double disk pommels, but more often than not, the best blades reach us in a dress that does not meet our collector's ideal.
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