Hi Rick,
Nice blade you have. The dot marks are those used by the Bikaner armoury, and the other letter are sometimes also on weapons from this armoury I recognise at least two of the letters. I dont know the meaning yet, but that is one of the things I study on and off so maybe one day! I hope it was not you who sharpened the blade with a file

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Hi Flavio,
Congratulation with your tulwar

. It is true that photographing a watered blade can be very difficult, either there is too little light to avoid reflections, or it is not sharp. It is however a good thing with the cameras of to day, you can see the picture within seconds, and not like in the old days where you had to wait a week before you got your blurred pictures back from development. You can avoid some of the reflections if you give the blade a thin layer of wax.
Flavio, is it black lacquer one can see on the hilt around the decoration?
Rick,
Here is one of mine, before and after it took hours, many hours, as I did it by hand.
The first sign could be a letter, I dont know, but the next three are the numbers 122 and the last S is unknown to me.
The numbers on yours seem to be, the first sign unknown, then 5, maybe 7 and 2.
Flavio, is it black lacquer one can see on the hilt around the decoration?
Here is one of mine, before and after it took hours, many hours, as I did it by hand.
The first sign could be a letter, I dont know, but the next three are the numbers 122 and the last S is unknown to me.
The numbers on yours seem to be, the first sign unknown, then 5, maybe 7 and 2.