Hi Alex,
I found this blade to be quite interesting and actually made a run at it, albeit, an unsucessful one because the wootz is very high quality and the zig zag effect is quite interesting. I felt the pattern was mechanically induced into the pattern during forging. I don't know how you add this effect at a later date to a quality wootz blade without impacting the existing pattern. You make a good point about its intent. While I have not seen a similar pattern I have seen some interesting manipulations a few of which are seen in Figiel's book. I imagine there is a bit of experimentation when trying to manipulate a pattern and I would guess you have to make a few blades to understand exactly how a certain manipulation would turn out. Perhaps someone was attempting to forge a ladder pattern blade but didn't manipulate the ingot in the correct way and turned out this type of pattern versus a ladder or double rung ladder. Who know's. I do think the price was probably conservative because we were dealing with such an unknown and maybe his comments about speaking to Figiel scared a few bidders away. All in all I think the blade is quite interesting on this one!
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