Quote:
Originally Posted by efrahjalt
Great shot of the pommel. It almost looks like the leather from the grip section is pulled over the back of the wrapped strips of leather from the inside to hold it all together. This is worn off, except in once section, of your example exposing the wrapped strips. It's a little hard to see where that is coming from. Do you think I'm interpreting it correctly? I have seen similar features on other examples.
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It's a little hard to say even with the sword in hand but I think it indeed covered the entire pommel section and has partially worn away (from someone walking around with their hand resting on it?). Part of the remainder has come slightly detached. I've attached a few more pictures (including some from the seller as he had better lighting).
It is a little hard to say how it was supposed to look, but I have another, smaller example with a thuluth blade that has a different grip cover style in which the leather straps cover the whole grip (see last few pictures).
In that second one the pommel is entirely encased in a leather cap, but I think it's likely that it is a similar pommel made of leather underneath. So my guess is that was the case for the big one as well, and the whole top half of the grip and pommel were basically encased in a leather "jacket" that as you can see seems to be stitched closed, of which the top has now worn away.
EDIT: Matt Easton talks a bit about the grips and pommels on these in this video where he also notes that the pommel on his example is a leather strip like in my example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVw1Ky_21Is