New shamshir: hoping for a diamond in the rough.

[GePi]

Hi,
I agree that is a nice example of a late 19th century Afghan shamshir, and the blade earlier than the hilt.

I am quite certain the blade is wootz. These parallel lines along the cutting edge are a feature that is commonly seen on shamshir blades with nice watered wootz patterns, I have attached a close up of the pattern of my own Afghan shamshir that I managed to grab earlier this year.

As for the cartouche I don't think that it is a Persian trade blade, rather locally made.
These a bit crude looking single cartouches I have seen before on Afghan blades, I have added two mounted in pulwar hilts that seem to made with the same stamp.
Those two have written amal-e assadullah esfahani whereas your's has the bandeye shah-e velayat, the second part of the generic Persian double cartouche, but otherwise they look quite similar to me.

I feel the date seems a bit early, but on the other hand I don't think it would make much sense to fake a date that is after all still not that early, so it might be genuine.