[tom hyle]

Monetary appraisals are against our noncommercial policy, sorry. The feruling area inside the guard would normally bee filled in with grip material on Turkish, and I think Persian versions of this guard style; what of kaskaras? This one seems empty, and that might be a sign of nontraditional/ignorant modern (not neccessarily foreign though) rehilting. Some folks get very disturbed at rehilting, but if done it was surely done because the old hilt was missing or very badly damaged (for some reason a certain percentage of people always assume I took off a perfectly good handle and threw it away or something, when I say I rehilted a sword, not that that's not just what traditional people commonly did with foreign ones they got). AFAIK this blade almost has to be (more or less) Sudanic African, which I say because of the style of the etching, and Conogre's lizard powers help, too, of course; the mystery is over whether the guard (and handle) is original/foreign/or what, and where/what tribe. I think the flat blade bevelled only at the edge (we think of this as machettelike; I think it shows the African descent of machete) is fairly common; I haven't owned kaskara though; only takouba. Also, I specifically wonder if those brown dots on the handle aren't rusty rivets that are under the leather, and showing thru.