Two north african knives

[blue lander]

The first one's a bou-saadi for sure. It's pretty rusty and the handle's dried up and beginning to crack, but other than that it's a really sturdy knife. There is a pin through the tang, but it's hidden by the wire wrapping on the handle. I know these things are usually made from old files, but I don't see much evidence this one was. I posted a picture of the spine, and there are some etches that might be from its previous life as a file. I don't see any other file patterns on or around the integral bolster.

Both sides are decorated, but the decorations on the right side are more elaborate. There's two crudely shaped brass dots but only on the right side. The spine is very plain. There's two horizontal lines on the middle of the knife and two towards the front. It does have a distal taper but it's still pretty thick by the end of the blade.

The cutting edge is oddly shaped. It's basically a chisel grind. The left side is virtually flat, but the right side is deeply hollow ground. There's some nicks and dings on the edge, but I don't know if that's from use or if it was in a drawer without a sheath and got dinged up.

The blade is a little out of alignment with the handle. In this thread there was some discussion as to whether or not this was done on purpose or if it was just mounted in the handle carelessly. His drifts a bit to the right and mine drifts a bit to the left so I'm thinking it probably wasn't deliberate.

Even though it's in poor condition, this seems like a really well designed utility knife. I'd be surprised to find out it was a tourist piece due to how plain and sturdy it is. Do they still produce knives in bousaada? I think a new one would make a great camping or "tool box" knife. This one would still be perfectly useable if it weren't for the cracks in the handle.

The second knife is the curved one with a sheath. The sheath is made of folded tin, I don't see any evidence it was once covered with an outer layer. The inside of the sheath seems to be lined with wood. The wood handle's all dried up on this one too, and the blade wiggles a bit. There's a pattern on the blade as well as the spine and some patterns on the handle made with brass wires and pins, much of which is now missing. There were once two "stones" on the handle, only one of them is left. After looking through pictures on the forum I still have no idea what it is. It looks pretty rough now but I bet this was a smart looking little dagger when it was new.