Frankly Detlef, i don't get the impression that this is all that old. The carved out areas look far to light and fresh for there to be any reasonable amount of age here. You see a lot of contemporary hilts on ePrey these days that are obviously modern designs that while sometimes based in tradition forms are really more of a free expression of the artist/carver. I'm not convinced that trying to nail this hilt down to a particular origin is likely to lead us to any conclusive answers.
