Heavy Nubian / Nigerian Short sword...age? comments?

[katana]

Sword finally arrived today, very heavy and solid......no way a tourist piece...blade is still quite sharp ...even though heavily rusted.....and has a nice 'ring' to it when struck. Gave the blade a careful 'scrape' and wire 'wooled' it ...some areas of deep pitting . Also has fine, diagonal lines which are slightly wavy. I thought at first that it could be a re-worked large file or rasp. But several things don't add up....the blade is a flattened diamond shape (in cross section) and there is evidence of 'forging' marks'. A re-worked 'file' blade often has the 'criss cross' surface noticeable on the thicker portions of the blade ....where it tapers to the 'edge' these tend to disappear either because they are ground/filed down (thus thinning the blade towards the edge) or, as it is forged the 'file teeth' are beaten into the 'file's core'. These 'wavy, diagonal lines traverse from one edge to the other
The hilt is very heavy, when handling the sword I noticed that by grasping the hilt near the top (leaves about 4cms of pommel protruding) gives the swinging action more power.....with the added advantage that the pommel could be used to strike an opponent in 'close quarter' combat.

Will post pics later.....I think I will need natural light to show up the detail.

Also, I re-posted some pics from this post that Ian (thanks)refered to
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ighlight=stars
There are many similarities to the hilt...