What is the correct hilt for this blade?
 

This blade came to me in a lot i bought together with some other arms. In the auction picture it was very dirty and had surface rust, so I did not think much of it. When I got it home I saw that it was hollow ground, so I thought it was a european saber blade.

When I cleaned it up I saw some signs of watering in the blade, so I polished and etched. It was wootz so clearly not a European blade there are no markings on it and the tang has no holes in it, so I figured its a 19th century indian blade. 19th century because the wootz is nice and flowing but not super tight looks like qajar wootz imo. It kinda hard to get good pictures on a blade that is not "flat" so the pictures are not that great.
Also while not clearly visable in the pictures the blade has a heat hardened edge that starts 10 cm before the tang and goes to the tip.

So I figured I use a good indian hilt I have that has no blade for it, but when I checked for comp ability I realized that the tang is too long for the hilt. So I compared it to 8 other of my other indian and ottoman swords, it s too long to fit any of the hilts. The tang is 122 mm long the blade with tang is 95 cm long and the weight of the blade is a little over 500g.
There are signs that the blade was once mounted since there is rust at the top of the blade closest to the tang put the lowest part of the tang seemt to have no rust. I would like to mount it in my Indian hilt but I do not want to cut the tang. Also I would like the blade to be mounted in a hilt that is as close to correct as possible. Soooo... long post for a short question. What is the correct hilt for a blade like this in your opinion?

Thanks for reading!

Looks like pattern welded steel to me. Could be a European presentation sabre, tho I'd expect some decorative engravings. The tang looks more suited for a curved European grip with a peened tang at the pommel. I am not an expert in these niceties in any respect, tho. Tangs, like people, look startlingly different when naked.

great catch! I wouldn't be surprised if this had a 'mameluke' hilt. a tulwar hilt would work perfectly.

I personally would refit it as a modern dress sword in KSA or Qatar. They make quality mounts there.

Perhaps it would fit in one of the all metal hilts shaped somewhat like a shamshir hilt, although I have never seen one disassembled.

It is a beautiful blade with an attractive pattern.

Im 99% sure its wootz it etched in 2 seconds, pattern welded itches slower in my experience. I dont think we can rule out that it was mounted with a european hilt, "oriental" blades was popular during around mid 19th century in europe. Las week I was in Livrustkammaren the armory of the Swedeish royal castle. There are several swords with excellent wootz blades mounted with swedish hilts and scabbards, they belonged to swedish king Carl xv who had a thing for oriental arms.

Thanks! I will look into that, it is allways interesting to explore new aspects of the field. I don not have any saudi swords yet but I know they make some high qulity pieces.

That hilt would be perfect. But finding one without a blade is very dificukt I would imagine. A year or two there was a very nice silver hilt on Czernys that I really liked, but I passed on it because I had no blade for it :rolleyes:

After GePi´s suggestion about the all metal shamshir hilt I browsed my books for similar hilts and found an all metal hilt with a similar blade, it even looks to be hollow ground (I could be wrong) and they are the same length 95cm. It looks correct, I think I will keep an eye out for a similar hilt. Allthough the sword in the book is quite old, I think there is possible to find 19th century hilts of similar style, but with different quillions.
i used all my MS paint skills to make this picture to compare, enjoy :D

Stumped! But at a guess I would say late in period, revival and made for a Western style hilt. Also... what a find! Russian Imperial perhaps.

I agree: magnificient blade of Kara Taban wootz. I would imagine a truly old and artistic handle of any Indian style or just a good Persian shamshir handle. I would stay away from overdecorated modern Indian handles: they would devalue the blade and scream “ composite”.

As to the Russian Imperial…. No way. Russians never created really beautiful complicated wootz patterns. Anosov was given exact recipe for making wootz ingots and an admonition to forge it at low temperature. That was the extent of his “ re-discovery” of bulat . On top of that, he so thoroughly misrepresented the written recipe he used that his followers ( except for a couple of technicians actually working for him) never managed to reproduce “his” process.

All the existent and available examples of his manufacture including the yataghan he sent to Faraday with a letter begging for the latter’s approval of his “discovery” were just mediocre Sham. Faraday never even acknowledged Anosov’s letter:-)