Tulwar with wootz blade!!

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Rick,

Nice blade you have. The dot marks are those used by the Bikaner armoury, and the other letter are sometimes also on weapons from this armoury – I recognise at least two of the letters. I don’t know the meaning yet, but that is one of the things I study on and off – so maybe one day! I hope it was not you who sharpened the blade with a file.

Hi Flavio,

Congratulation with your tulwar. It is true that photographing a watered blade can be very difficult, either there is too little light to avoid reflections, or it is not sharp. It is however a good thing with the cameras of to day, you can see the picture within seconds, and not like in the old days where you had to wait a week before you got your blurred pictures back from development. You can avoid some of the reflections if you give the blade a thin layer of wax.

Flavio, is it black lacquer one can see on the hilt around the decoration?

Rick,

Here is one of mine, before and after – it took hours, many hours, as I did it by hand.
The first sign could be a letter, I don’t know, but the next three are the numbers ‘122’ and the last ‘S’ is unknown to me.
The numbers on yours seem to be, the first sign unknown, then 5, maybe 7 and 2.
Flavio, is it black lacquer one can see on the hilt around the decoration?
Here is one of mine, before and after – it took hours, many hours, as I did it by hand.
The first sign could be a letter, I don’t know, but the next three are the numbers ‘122’ and the last ‘S’ is unknown to me.
The numbers on yours seem to be, the first sign unknown, then 5, maybe 7 and 2.