Thanks Colin and Lofty, it's certainly one of the top pieces I own now (thanks again to Stefan for sourcing it and the other wide blade shown in my comparison photo
).
In terms of the wear and tear seen on edges - its hard to say what kind of use that's from. Contact with shields or armour, other swords, or just abuse after the items ended up in collections? In this case I discount the latter as the sword has obviously been taken care of. In terms of parrying, what we can see of Tuareg swordsmanship in modern sword dances seems to indicate this could happen. Although the shield played a much larger role.