This is a relatively late example, certainly made in the Pahlavi era, i.e. post 1925. The salient characteristics are the inelegant, abbreviated form of the blade, the poorly-cut grooves, and the inlay, accomplished by chiseling a pattern into the steel and then heating and filling it with braze and grinding it flat. Likewise, the grips are competent but lack the refinement of earlier work.
The Qajar coins used as washers can assist in establishing a date, but dating a weapon based upon the coins applied to it is problematic. First, the coins must form an integral part of the piece, as they do here-- they are not nailed or soldered on as embellishments, which is often done much later-- rather, they comprise part of the hilt construction. Second, even when they are integral, the dates coins bear can only be taken as terminus ante quem i.e., the weapon cannot date earlier than the coins, but can date anytime thereafter.
|