Katar Blade Markings & Origin ?
 

These blade marking are puzzling. They are on both sides of the blade, given the blades up sweep is at the top. They are mostly complete even though in
a fuller. I guess they may be numbers due to the fact they only contain four
or five characters. I'd love to find out the blades origins, etc.

Thank you in advance, Steve

When I look at those symbols and free-associate, I come up with an approximation of GENOA .. the N being backwards .

.02

Wow
 

Hey Rick, that was quick and money well spent. I'm either too dyslexic or not enough. Genoa it must be. LOL, Steve

Nice katar. I recently squires a similar one from a fellow forumite. That looks like a recycled sword blade. The markings may very well refer to Genoa, as genoise blades were thought to be of very fine quality. However, I would not be surprised if the blade is of local manufacture with the inscreption added to increase value. This would certainly explain the peculiar writing style, and I am only referring to an inverted "N".

Yeah, I think it is an 'approximation' of a Genoa mark .
I would not try to begin to guess where this blade was manufactured .

Follow up
 

Talk about being snake bit. I couldn't see the forest or the trees. It's Tanjore cousin is a bit more ornate. This type of blade was apparently being imported and in vogue in the 1600s. The upper arm guard is bent out from use or to give greater additional wrist motion. This seems common with curved Katars.

It's reasonable to assume that the blade was marked in India. A lot of the imports had whole phrases in Latin. I think the Katar has age showing it has nearly lost all of heavy silver plating. The blade doesn't show the same dark aging, it displays almost an active rust and the reddish tone seen on so may
recent creations.