A very basic and bashed Saif.
 

Got this one yesterday in a private sale and I am quite happy with it for the price paid. Comments on origin welcome. I have issues with the grip scales which were described as "cork" and that seems to be just what they are... I think they were banged on to make it saleable, the originals being absent, shattered or of a CITES controlled material.
There is no doubt but that it has had a hard life, but no harder than many pieces made for use in my experience.

While silverwire is quite common on Arab swords, it is not specifically an Arab only feature. Your sword could have been used in a wide area, but I lean towards a more simple Turkish production.

I have no problems with a Turkish origin. What does concern me is the grip material, it does look and feel like cork which I do not see as being original. Another factor are the rivet washers or rovings which are not typical. I am not in a rush, but unless I find some reference to cork as a period grip scale material I will remove and replace them..... Horn or hardwood seems more suitable to me.

Use of any available, easily manipulated material is expected but I've not seen cork before. But I did see soft plastics with strange colours before.

The oddest grip material I have seen was coarse pink wall plaster, the base layer type before the fine white grade is skimmed on to finish. This was on a quite decent yatagan, and had been painted black to disguise it. That came off after I got my hands on it and replaced with buffalo horn.
This was done 20 years ago, and I would go about it differently now, more cautiously and better researched.

so I scratched the itch and began work.
 

The hilt was so rotten that it pulled apart with my bare fingers. I am pretty confident that the hilt was a quick and dirty fix for a sale, and probably not in the land of origin. The wire was in pieces, as was the brass strip profile round the grip (is there a term for this) not from damage, but applied in pieces. The Cork was rotten and crumbled. The hilt profile was "soldered" in a lumpy fashion, and was in places more like cement or "cold solder" or resin than metal. Finally stripped down, and the flat full tang is in places paper thin, so I wonder if it was ever meant to have the brass "profile strip" wrapped round it.

And now the photo's, which may or may not be in order!

Due to how thin the tang is, I an inclined to go with this style of grip, as I would question if it ever had a profile strip. Comments and advise welcome.