[S.Al-Anizi]

Well I personally believe that most, something like 80% of Omani straight kattaras, have locally produced blades. However, with most sabre kattaras, they have imported trade blades, more than 90% of them. As you say, the mark of the running wolf of solingen, has been so altered, that the original one is unrecognisable anymore.

Clearly, the kattara is a unique sword, with its blade characterstics, the finess, the rounded tip, and also with the unguarded hilt, but thats not the sword Im talking about here, Im talking about the one i provided I picture above in my first post.

I really cannot answer your question regarding why the wolf mark is much better copied than in the caucasus, but it seems to be a fact. All the saifs and sabre kattaras with engravings such as moons, stars, and sword weilding arms are undeniably german, hungarian, or caucasian blades, but still, some local smiths, presumably in mecca or ha'il, did copy those marks, as a sign of quality, and some were skilled and copied them well. The reason why people not from the region do not see so many saifs or kattara's with locally made blades is not that they're of bad quality, the reason is purely commercial in my opinion, western antiques dealers buy swords with valuable persian wootz blades, and sell them in the west, establishing the fact that most arabian swords had such blades, which is wrong. The common bedouin, carried a straight saif, with a locally made blade made somewhere in one of the many towns in arabia. Those that are well off would hope to buy one with a european blade, or with a blade made in Ha'il, where swordsmithing was quite advanced in arabia. Only wealthy emirs or tribal sheikhs could afford a wootz blade. Most saifs Ive seen, and ive seen MANY, whether in damascus, riyadh, kuwait, have locally produced blades, next comes those with european blades, which became common in the early 19th century, and least came persian wootz blades, which were of high quality, only uncommon because of their price.

As to the idea of kattara blades being thinner and lighter than western broadswords, I think the answer to that lies in looking at portugese sword blades of the 15th-16th centuries. You know, Omani's had a long war with the portugese, and suceeding in defeating them and driving them back to central africa. They must have captured ALOT of blades, old and new, some obsolete designs, and these must have surfaced in the smithies of Muscat, where they were hilted, and used, and resharpened alot, until they reached a point of being very thin and whippy. Ofcourse this is only speculation, because all kattara blades, from 16th to the 20th centuries are thin and whippy, so they would have been naturally made so.