Nice piece! Always been intrigued why so many of these military sabre blades show up in Manding pieces but so few show up in kaskara or takouba mounts. Even though there are enough curved takouba and kaskara to illustrate that they weren't adverse to the occasional curved blade.
Markings sound particularly intriguing, a pity they are too faint to photograph easily. One idea would be to rub a little flour or other white powder into the marks and you might be able to get a photo of the outline that way and still easily clean up afterwards. Assuming there's enough indentation in the marks.
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