...by way of Germany, so it's been on a bit of a journey. 4 1/2" hilt, blade is 29" in straight line from quillions to tip, quillions 4 1/8" wide, blade is 1 5/16" wide at hilt, 5/16" thick at spine.
Blade is clean except for a few spots ofactive rust along the cutting edge that I will carefully remove to prevent any further deterioration. Whoever did the polish/etch on this did a really nice job of bringing up the pattern without over-polishing the blade. Never really understood the expression "watered" steel before, but the pattern weld on some of these blades really does look like running water...
So, any opinions from the experts? Was the seller accurate in attributing this to Afghanistan, and any guesses as to approx. age?