Ottoman hancer / court dagger?

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Kubur

Ah ah, clever, I was interested by this one!
You should post the scabbard too.
It's an interesting piece done only with old and original parts.
Hilt ottoman jambiya 19th c.
Blade Ottoman so-called court dagger 18th c.
and scabbard Ottoman kinjal 19th c.
It's really a nice object, but it's a combinaison of stuffs.
You can see that the blade is too small for the scabbard.
The hilt is too big for the blade and the hilt is too big for the scabbard.
Plus a nail in the hilt to fix the blade.
The question is when this strange combinaison was done?

The hilt does look like a Jambiya hilt, the wood scabbard core fits the blade perfectly but the tip is broken off, the metal cover is a bit crude, no doubt just basic work. The melding of the blade to the hilt appears to be old, the blade and hilt are solid and if you look at images of other daggers of this type, some have the hilts riveted in the same place were this one is riveted. The hilt fits my hand perfectly and is a very good match for the length of the blade and it is very well balanced as the blade is quite heavy.

To me it appears as if someone made this into a fighting dagger at some point in the past, it probably had an ivory or stone hilt originally. The current hilt is a much better hilt for actual use as many of the hilts normally associated with these types of daggers look to be a bit small.

The seller had this listed at an extremely low "buy it now" price instead of auctioning it, probably a mistake on his part, plus his images were really bad. I have always wanted one of these blades but have not wanted to pay the high price usually asked, this was a fraction of the price compared to a pristine example.

Here is a link to some images of other examples.
https://www.pinterest.com/worldantiq...-court-dagger/

[estcrh]

Here is a jambiya with a similar hilt.

[mariusgmioc]

I don't know why I have the feeling it is wootz.

The scabbard is clearly a recent addition but the hilt, whether original or most probably not, is a very good match to the blade.