I don't think that I've read of Europeans exporting many unfinished sword blades, though I have read of the export of many unmounted sword blades. What can you tell me about this? My impression in regards to most of the straight sword blades exported to India that became firangis and kattars is that they were obsolete (and/or banned) used European swords' blades. The hilt looks native (European) to me? The spiral wire-wrapped grip would sure be a gratuitous, uneccessary, and difficult detail for a foreigner or faker, who would have to learn how to do it tightly from experiments. Also the grinding with the sharp plunges looks European to me. Does the ricassoe have a kind of humped surface to the flats?
A narrow thin blade does not seem unusual to me for a late rapier on the way to smallsword. IMO a modern tendency to see such as nonweaponish is as suspect as the same when applied to central African swords, or even to k(e)ris. In continuing European folk tradition, some trained fighters prefer a thin flexible blade for thrusting, saying that it "slides around the ribs" instead of sticking in one. Lightness of blade could of course be a very important consideration. I've seen such blades in old plain iron dress; not court swords those. The thrusting tip of many smallswords (the expanded base kind, the backsword kind, and others) is long, thin and flexy. These were the swords used for duelling in the period of most of the famous "Western" duelling history and literature (though I'll take a moment to say that the idea that this indicates an absense of duelling in other times and places is far from accurate. An otherwise decent book on modern Western duelling that sticks to this error is called "By the Sword"....random book review.). The swords whose weilders claimed them the deadliest ever (not that that's a singular attitude).
Is there any sign of lamination/folding? Are you going to repair the hilt? When you remove it the tang may tell you things. They get loney and talkative in there
