What Is This

[David]

Beautiful, fascinating and most certainly deadly if properly applied.

[archer]

Ron,
I vote defensive, too. Your Fakirs horns are likely from the same species.
I was joking about the back scratchers, I'll be sure to add a smiley next time.

Broad axe, I'm still leaning toward Kumyah for blade shape, all Indian double Bichwas I can find have a diamond profiles. The closest design comparisons are Moroccan influenced. Even their Henna art is similar.

The patterns/symbols on the horn hilt surely have a meaning other than just a free form design. The designs overall don't depict any flowers a commonly seen in Indian works.

Whoever, worked out the blade to natural horn adjustments alone has my admiration.

Thank you all for your interest and comments,
Steve

[Ron Anderson]

HI Steve

I found this surprising. It's in a new book I've just received - The illustrated encyclopedia of knives, daggers and bayonets.

Sorry for taking a photo, I haven't got my scanner up and running yet. Two points worth noting - the horn hilt (obviously), described as gazelle, and secondly the blades bear a fair resemblane to the blade type of your item.

These are described as Spanish fighting knives, 19th century.

Whether this is a red herring, or a breakthrough in the identification, I don't know. But I thought should let you know.

Cheers
Ron

[celtan]

I don't know. Man's inventiveness is incredible, and some Spanishman may conceivably have made something whimsical like this. Just look at the Sagrada Familia Cathedral.

Myself, I have never seen anything even remotely similar coming from Iberia. Then, Spain is a big country. What looks strange to someone from the North may be perfectly normal for someone in the South.

[Jim McDougall]

I think its a bichwa.

[cdkjacobson]

I recently received an odd dagger from my aunt. She got it from her father, who got it from a friend, who got it from someone who stole it from a destroyed museum in Germany during WWI. He thought it might be Egyptian (which I doubt, as I study Egyptian archaeology), but that is all the information I have on it.

The handle is horn (I think gazelle, but could be a small section of blackbuck horn) and the blade is metal (don't know what kind, possibly an iron alloy). This overall condition of the dagger makes me think it can't be more than a couple hundred years old, if that. It's also not particularly well made - the guard is loose and the connection of hilt with blade is cheaply done - so it could be an imitation of something older.

I'm thinking it might be Indian, or an imitation of an Indian dagger. The hilt is reminiscent of a fakir's horn and the curve of the blade reminds me of a bichwa. I can't find any parallels for this exact type of blade; the closest thing I have been able to find was in a post on this forum a year ago - the "Spanish fighting knives": http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12657

I've attached pictures below. Does anyone have any thoughts about the provenance, date, authenticity of such a dagger? Thanks,

Courtney