What is the shortest blade you all have encountered on a shashka?

[Jim McDougall]

ooooh!! is right! what beautiful examples! This is an area of collecting pretty esoteric, and as noted, these do seem to be 'Transcaucasian', that is in Armenian regions and into Trebizond, Erzerum (which as I recall were locations these were collected apparently back in the mid to latter 1800s according to museums I contacted).
NOTE: the scabbard on my example of what we now term Laz Bicagi, but in days of earlier research many years back we called them 'Black Sea Yataghan' during all the 'discussion'.

It seems that Professor Seifert, in his "Schwert Degen Sabel" (1962) had termed these 'Kurdish-Armenian yataghans' and had alluded to the similarity of the flyssa needle point as found on so many examples (as mine). As I had indicated I had seen these in a then obscure article from Denmark "Origins of the Shashka" by Triikman and Jacobsen (1941).
In discussions with Professor Seifert I asked where he had obtained that classification, to which he replied, from my mentor, Mr. Holger Jacobsen!
He told me he had one of these at one time and it had 'strange' writing.
While of course uncertain, this many have been Georgian, which I believe has been seen on some examples. A guy I was communicating with at this time in Tblisi told be that while these were not Georgian weapons, they were well known there.

I am trying to find the pages of the Zichy (1897) article....this research is well over 20 years ago, so trying to find this stuff is like Tut's tomb!

Pages from Seifert.
Note the scabbard shape on my examples. detail from the blade.