Hi Jeff,
I did not mean to suggest that the blade and the hilt had been assembled recently, as it looks old to me. I only asked be course it seems to me as if the hilt was not made for this blade. It is interesting what you can see, when you take a good picture and blow it up on the screen. Details, which you have never seen before, suddenly appears in front of you – it is a good way to study the weapons, which you thought you knew
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The hilt decoration is strange, and I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it before, but I don’t think it is koftgari. The edges of the ‘background’ seem to be rounded, not with sharp edges, like it would be if it was koftgari, and the wear would be on the floral decoration not on the ‘background’ so this could not have been the reason for the round edges. Sometimes the gold/silver was not filed down to blade level, when koftgari was made, it was left in relief, but to decorate a whole hilt in this way is something I have not seen before. I have seen many different types of decoration, amongst them inlaid and gilded copper in relief. Are you quite sure it is koftgari?
Jens