Your Dahb 's supposed to be alive. It was carefully made for home/self defence purpose, not for only practice. From the way he apply black pitch/resin, I think the smith/maker did the best of his knowledge.
Like Ian said, the little metal plate 's not that uncommon. But from my exp. it is usually associated with metal encased handle (for older metro sword) or metal ferrule (modern one). This also shows that the smith put efforts on his craft.
