Well what about this then? Two kaskaras (one mine, not pictured) and a Scottish basket hilt with near as dammit identical blades. Engraved decoration so similar I think they must be from the same source. Pictures and a little bit of input over on SFI.
1st posting
ELJay's input
Sorry for the myriad links to see all the pics. Unfortunately I lost the photos of mine in a computer crash, but it really is almost indistinguishable from the other two except for a greater degree of wear.
Anyway, not that I doubt Artzi & ElJay (too much
) but if these are North African made blades, how many did they produce to make it likely I'd see three within as many years? I can accept a Solingen cutler banging out industrial quantities of blades (witness the thousands of very similar JJ Runkel retailed Georgian military blades still around). Was bladesmithing in North Africa similarly grouped into a few large volume producers? I know shallow fullered blades struck with crescent moons are very common but perhaps naively, had imagined that every local smith would have his variant of the stamp.
Paul