Thread: New purchase.
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Old 10th July 2012, 12:16 AM   #9
Atlantia
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: The Sharp end
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I remember emailing the seller about the mismatched scabbard (pointing out the scabbard was Kurdish) and he wasn't much help tbh lol.
In all honesty David, you probobly don't need to look much further than the 'label' for this one. As Lew rightly pegged it, it's a mid 20thC Indian dagger of reasonable quality.
To call it a 'souvenir' is fine in the literal sense, but don't judge it by applying a modern definition to a bygone age.
We have a tendency to think 'souvenir' means cheap and mass produced rubbish, because thats sort of true NOW.
Back in the 40s, you could buy fantastic quality items in the markets of any country across asia.
I doubt there is a single member here without something of similar age and origin.
Yes, it was seemingly marketed to 'foreigners' so might be regarded as a souvenir, but it's quality is what could have been expected of any knife made in that era.
Look at other items of that date.
Shops in Calcutta selling Kukri and such to foreigners that make all the military patterns that post date them look like crap.
Fine quality Jambiya and Khanjar being bought by local and foreigner alike, Druze Jambiya, Keris, etc, etc. There was no real 'line'.
Just because your knife was (from the inscription) sold to a foreigner, doesn't mean it's in the same room with those lion headed Kukri from the 1970s that we all know and despise.
It's possible that it's a reused section of a sword blade, but that wouldn't be usual. Soak it in vinegar or lemon juice if you really want to test for wootz.
Beyond that I'd say that it is what it is, a rather stylish 'fusion' knife from the last days of the Raj.

Last edited by Atlantia; 10th July 2012 at 12:46 AM.
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