Thank you, Teodor. Your observations are absolutely correct. Wootz it is.
The blade does look Persian, anywhere from late 18th to late 19th Century, and safe to say mid 19th. The hilt is Indo-Persian: being coftgaried opposite to chiselled or engraved makes it hard to attribute. My pure guess is that it originally had ivory/walrus hilt, but it was broken/damaged and replaced with the present hilt (based on the fact that the blade has nice chiselled and gold inlayed decoration at forte, but the hilt is less elaborate silver coftgari).
Very nice and attractive jambiya, Lew.
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