Midshipmans dirk or italian spike dagger?
 

Purchased this thinking it was a plain naval dirk, possibly british but comes descibed as italian stiletto! What i thought was a double edged blade is actually a 4 soded curved spike with shallow fuller to each side, curious! Any help appreciated. You can see what cross section of blade is like from photo of mouth of the scabbard

Certainly not a spike dagger; those would have straight blades, right ? Neither a stilleto, for the same reason. Beautiful piece, in any case :cool:.

Looks like a hoof shape on the end of the grip - some form of hunting knife?

Yes, it's a French hunting dagger, see here my example with different handle: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...=french+dagger

Regards,
Detlef

Great knowledge and thankyou for sharing your example

You're welcome!:)