Help Identify this Sword - (Talwar, Shamshir ?)

[katana]

Hi GST,
I would say a shamshir blade ..... a deliberately modified or 're-used' damaged tulwar hilt with the disc/pommel missing ... and obviously horn slabs rivetted to the tang to complete the hilt.
I am saying shamshir blade due to the fact it does not have a rat-tailed or similar tang that the tulwar would have had.
Whether this was a later marriage ('bitsa' sword) or one born out of necessity and, therefore, part of its history isn't clear, I'm afraid.

Kind Regards David

[Rick]

I see an Afghan influence in the hilt scales .

[Stan S.]

The best way to tell tulwar from shamshir IMO is to look for the presence of a ricasso (the unsharpened area at the base of the blade). Ricasso on this type of blades is a unique feature identifying a sword as a tulwar. If the blade is sharpened evenly all the way to the hilt, it can be called a shamshir. From the pictures you provided, it does not appear that the ricasso is there but perhaps I am just not seeing it? The hilt shape. although not a typical one, definetely points at Indo Persia as a country of origin.

In conclusion I'd like to say that it is is a lovely and unusual sword you have there!

[kronckew]

my initial impression (before reading the other replies) was/is afghani.

[Atlantia]

I can't say with total certanty, but this style of hilt is in my experience a modern hybrid design. A way to spruce-up the simple steel Tulwar hilt and (i assumed) to make it more comfortable and widen it's appeal to modern buyers (including the export market).
I believe that the similar examples I've seen hail from Rajathan, N/N-W India.
If seen similar hilts described as being bone or camel bone.

That said, I can the others points about Afghan similarities and it wouldn't be much of a stretch to place it in Afghanistan and make it a 'Taliban Tulwar'.

[Jim McDougall]

GST welcome to the forum! and thanks for posting this unusual example...gotta admit I hadn't seen anything with reindeer horn before!
Totally agree with the consensus here, a tulwar which has been redone with this hilt to become a rather appealing unusual example, and most likely in Afghan regions.
A tulwar I would say.

[A.alnakkas]

Hello,

What Jim said pretty much. But am interested in the blade, its missing a riccaso which makes me think its not indian manufacture?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by A.alnakkas

Hello,

What Jim said pretty much. But am interested in the blade, its missing a riccaso which makes me think its not indian manufacture?

Spot on Lofty! Exactly as Stan pointed out in his post, characteristically Indian made blades will have that distinct ricasso which was effectively to allow protection for the forefinger often wrapped over the quillon in Indian sword technique with tulwars.
This is more likely an apparantly well worn European blade, and not likely Persian as it does not actually have the features of those shamshir blades.
Even when 'tulwars' are mounted with shamshir blades in India (quite common actually in Mughal courts) they are typically termed tulwar as this is of course the word in general for sword there.
There are tulwars with Persian style hilts rather than the Indo-Persian disc pommel types, again called 'tulwar' but with Persian form hilt noted.

I would add here that in Tirri, there are examples of tulwars sans the disc pommel which he notes are removed as per Afghan fighting preference, which seems correct. I have actually seen tulwar forms which appeared to have been produced without the pommel disc, one in discussions with a British Brigadier who took it from a tribesman in fighting on plains near Khyber regions in the 1930s.

Terminology in ethnographic weapons can be maddening!!!