Hi Brian:
Very interesting and informative article on Tipu Sultan sword.
I need to ask a question or two. #1 What sword are we talking about? I think the picture you show ( the first one) is not the same sword that Dr. Pant shows in his volume #2 ( I did an exhaustive and very comprehensive and through study of my references, my one book!
) so which one is right?
the picture in Dr. Pant book show a sword with a knuckle guard and your picture show a sword without a knuckle guard. Both were taken from his bedchamber
#2 Why would anyone in the position as Tipu even consider a blade made elsewhere. At that time the folks in Europe were trying to make Wootz steel but could not as they knew that the wootz steel was far superior to European steel.
Here is an article from the Department of Metallurgy, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore India The link to the web page is;
http://met.iisc.ernet.in/~rangu/text.pdf.
The article talks about Tipu sword and also a great article on Wootz.
However be prepared to sit back and read for a while as the article is 90 pages long, the section on Tipu sword is on pages 45-46.