Revolutionary War era side knife/dagger

[Jim McDougall]

Then there is this oddball Ive had about 45 years. I had always regarded it as an early variant of the 1796 light cavalry saber (in fact in was included in an article on such variants by Eric Troldhuus of the Danish Arms and Armour Society in the 90s). In some Caucasian sabers such as the skirted shashka, it seemed perhaps some of the ethnic influences such as Tatar from these might have come into play. However that assumption would be pretty tenuous.

What is even more interesting on this is the extremely parabolic shamshir blade with the pipeback blade somewhat popular in early British sabers. In this early period from the time Henry Osborn was developing the regulation British light cavalry saber of 1796, there were considerations of tulwars, shamshirs and other ethnographic forms, so perhaps this might have been some sort of prototype,...so many mysteries!