Old Khyber

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by ariel

The beautiful one on the front cover of the “ Afghani edged weapons” book is Indian. Fiegels’ sale catalogue has a couple of Persian. I have one with deep old Indian chiseling ( thanks, Jens) and another potentially Indian with elephant ivory handle and sophisticated wootz blade.
But we are talking about Afghanistan proper , and most khybers in use there will be of local manufacture.
It’s like seeing more Fords than Fiats and Alfa Romeos in America. But move to Italy, and the proportions will flip. And, of course, their occurrence in neighboring countries is likely to be largely limited to ethic Afghans, such as Khyber Pakhtunhwa in contemporary Pakistan, formerly part of India.

Crossed posts! I did not realize the one on the book cover was Indian (?). Would that be in that Afghanistan in the 19th c. was considered part of India?
I do not have Fiegel handy, but again did not realize there were Persian Khyber's in it. It does seem quite understandable that ethnic persons of Khyber tribes in other geographic locales might take their Khyber's along.