Questions on Nimcha

[FenrisWolf]

Recently I finally was lucky enough to add a Nimcha to my collection, not the fancy Moroccan dagger that goes by the name, but the sword. According to the tag that accompanied it, it was originally purchased in 1980 from a Berber family in the mountains outside of Morocco, and was attributed to being 150 years old at that time (sorry about the blurriness on the first couple of shots, I forgot to reset from macro):





The metalwork is solid, high-content German silver, completely engraved on both sides of the scabbard. Whoever the artist was, he was REALLY into detail! What does puzzle me, though, is this: I'm familiar with the tradition that calls for European blades to be remounted in the traditional hilts, but every one I've seen prior to this has had a blade in good to excellent condition mounted in the fittings. This is definitely NOT the case here:



The blade was cleaned prior to being fitted in its new furniture, but prior to that had been horribly neglected for a very long time. It also has the maltese crosses and crescent moons that are supposedly significant as to its origins?



And finally, the blade was originally longer, a true saber blade of some sort, and was shortened and given a true thrusting tip:



So, any ideas? My own wild speculation is that the original blade belonged to a trophy that was of great significance to the owner, otherwise I can't imagine why such elaborate fittings would've been put on such a battered blade.

Fenris