Quote:
Originally Posted by rumpel9
Finally, I did receive my long-standing purchase - an Indian sword, which I assumed could be called katti. Below you can see the photos. As Nihl pointed out quite correctly, the blade of this sword is made in the style of a Khyber knife. This sword can hardly be called katty.
But it is unlikely that this is the blade of a Khyber knife, with an Indian handle. The length of the blade is 73.5 cm . And at the base there is a brand - an Indian sign (by the way, no one knows what this sign means?).
How do you think this sword can be classified?
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Rumpel, the mark on your blade is simply "po" (पो) in punched devanagari. This likely is an abbreviation of some kind of armory or other location (like how "bikaner" is typically abbreviated to just "bi").
In regards to its name, I very much agree with Ian's assessment of the situation. Too often people want a simple "name tag", of sorts, that they can apply to their items. In all reality, particularly with Indian swords, this approach rarely works, and a more descriptive name is required; one that gives a name to both the blade and the hilt.
As such, I would personally deem your new acquisition to (still) have a khyber knife style
blade, but a standard tulwar hilt. It is somewhat tempting to categorize the blade as being sosun patta in style, given that, like a turkish yataghan, in the 19th century some sosun patta were made with t-back blades, however your example doesn't really have enough recurvature to warrant the name change IMO.
Also keep in mind, the tulwar hilt requires this sword to be used in a draw cutting fashion, so in function this sword would basically "work" the same as a standard tulwar, albeit maybe slightly better at thrusting.
Both components likely date to the 19th century.