Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
Actually that would be pretty unheard of as most countries jealously guard their antiquities, and while this common tulwar is of course, not a national treasure, it would be quite unnecessary to keep logs of these kinds of items sold off.
The British Raj, a very administratively 'organized' government simply tried to maintain records of the weaponry used by their military, as well as their subsidized enterprises in the security forces. There are surely records of the many acronyms and numbers of these units, but not readily at hand.
While armories surely existed throughout the princely states of India, the only well known one that comes to mind is as mentioned, Bikaner. As noted the arms stored here, captured mostly in the campaigns of Anup Singh in the late 17th c. The stippled numbers and letters in Gujerati script typically include the date and other particulars. Coincidentally the location where many of these were acquired was in Tanjore.
In the 19th century (1863) the Tanjore armory was dismantled, and the almost unimaginable hoards of old weapons were huge, thus largely became scrap. However many were kept for posterity due to their unique character or quality, and many of these were recorded by M.J. Walhouse ("The Old Tanjore Armory", Indian Antiquary, Vol. VII, Aug. 1878) in some degree but no particular detail. As far as known, these did not have distinguishing markings or numbers. Many of these arms circulated as souvenirs into collections, many ended up in the Metropolitan in New York via George Cameron Stone, obtained from W.O.Oldman via Walhouse.
Over many years, I know Jens Nordlund has tried to compile a listing or record of arsenal or armory marks or designations in India, however no notable number have surfaced.
As discussed, the only lettered and or numbered system of markings on these kinds of weapons are from the Raj period into modern times and for military units and private security forces.
The only systems for marking of weapons as far as being antiques would probably be as noted, on guns, for safety control purposes.
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