Thanks for the reply ariel, 19th century was my uneducated guess as well.
The fitting (?) of the resin seemed a bit crude to me too, but I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of hilt construction.
As for the clean part under the languets, I did not mention it, but Matt described the blade as completely black when he received it, and he has done quite a bit of cleaning. As you can see in the attached pictures, on the other side of the sword the rust also covers the area under the languet.
Cheers
Gernot
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