Hello Jose, The first time I saw this dagger I was thinking the same thing about it once having inlay, but after it arrived I could find no evidence that it ever did. The engraving has very sharp edges and shows no signs of ever being peened to hold inlay in place. I wish that I could take a better photo that would show the chisel marks that are in the undercut areas that are used to highlight the design itself. Most of the main line design has a raised edge on one side of the groove only which would make it very hard to keep any inlaid material in place. What would be your opinion on the age of this piece be? Going by the hilt style alone I would guess it to be somewhere between 1910 and 1930, but that is only a guess as it could be later and the hilt style could have just been copied from an earlier example.
Best,
Robert
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