Hi Wayne,
Extremely well written and thought out post responding to the Genoa markings and Caucasian trade blades!
Actually what I was suggesting, and apparantly could have worded better, was that this blade, of uncertain origin appears to have had motif and the 'Genoan' marking added, probably by a tribal armourer in the Maghreb.
The point that I was bringing up about the ' sickle mark' used in linear motif was known to occur on the blades from the Caucusus, and that this much more crudely done representation suggested that these blades must have been known to the armourer. The only other place I know of this linear motif with these sickle marks besides the Caucusus has been an example of sword in India, so it seemed most interesting to see it here in the Maghreb.
My note on the transcribing of words and lettering by armourers or blacksmiths on these refurbished blades simply was suggesting that the obvious errors were a result of being done by a person not able to read the language, and quite possibly illiterate even in thier own language. I'm sure that if I were trying to inscribe something in Cyrillic, the end result would probably even be worse than this !
considering my limited knowledge of Russian.
Thank you for the outstanding and informative post concerning possibilities concerning these 'Genoan' markings and the very impressive deductive reasoning you present to support your observations ! My point could certainly have been presented more clearly, so my apologies for the wild goose chase!
All best regards,
Jim