17th- 18th North Italian dagger

[eftihis]

Opinions please regarding authenticity.

[Rick]

I'm skeptical, the blade looks like it was made yesterday. The decoration on the guard looks pretty crude compared to the rest of the piece.

Just my opinion though, this is not my field of interest.

[Jim McDougall]

Interesting melange of features, an innovative creation.
The 'face' on the guard reminiscent of 'green man' type theme of early to mid 17th c. English hilts.
The artistically copied 'anchor' of many 17th c. Spanish swords was never as far as I have known been seen on daggers.
In this case the pierced apertures in the blade recall Albacete style daggers and plug bayonets.
Intriguing, but certainly not of antiquity in my opinion.

[Radboud]

Interesting knife, not my area but the markings and blade piercing is almost identical to one of my smallswords:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=27980

[Jim McDougall]

As indicated in the linked thread, the 'anchor' is not a 'Toledo' mark but a conventional device used in a symbolic sense on blades there initially, but was followed in degree in some other centers...most notably Solingen.

[fernando]

Atypical piece indeed. Is this dagger in your collection, Eftihis ?

[eftihis]

Hi Fernando! It is not my area of collection, but its a fascinated area so i have some old european daggers

[fernando]

What an excelent set of daggers. Thanks for sharing it.