searching for a kukri
 

whilst looking for something completely different, i recently came across an image of a kukri, owned by an english officer. the hilt was calligraphic, and pierced to spell out his name. the picture wasnt great, and the kukri was sheathed, but it was very diferent and definately interesting.
as i didnt want to get side tracked at the time, so i thought i'd come back to it. now i cant find the reference. thought it was definately in my library, but maybe was in others that i use, so am appealing to anyone to jog my memory and save me the trouble of back-tracking.
JP, or anyone else familiar with this?

If this is the kukri you refer to I never heard the story of it being made for an English officer, but could be. It is very elaborate with a worked ivory grip, silver being sculpted into Lyall's name, and a scabbard (missing the velvet covering) with a finely done chape & mechanical locket. Most definitely done in India around mid 19thc.
http://www.jnanam.net/users/jp/lyall.jpg

yes, john, well done. what was the book reference, to ease my mind. its a fabulous piece, and the english officer was from scant memory and may not be accurate.

The kukri was offered to me back in 1970'ies, it must have been travelling quite a lot.

thanks jens, you gave me the clue i was looking for. i know a little of your collecting history, and so was able to find the source of the reference i had seen and was looking for :)
for anyone interested, the owner was Sir. A.C.Lyall, the name of which the silver grip forms, against a ground of ivory covered in gold foil.
he was acting governer-general for rajputania 1874-8.

Now if you'll pass the source material on to me Brian I can get some sleep. I've been searching through everything to no avail. I can't even find the original colour photos that somehow found their way here.

Bob Hales had offered this piece a while back when he still had a shop in London. My understanding is that it ended up in Japan but can't confirm this. I would dearly love to study this thing up close.

hey jp,
cant help, as the reference i lost, and then found was the elliot and snowden catalogue of the mid 70s. the image is B/W and the dagger is sheathed. the image is not of quality, and yours is much better. will happily forward the image and details if you dont have the reference.
ys, its annoying looking for something you know you have. try looking for something else, like your car keys :)
B

not sure where your image came from, as i'm not aware of it being in any other book. bob would be a good place to start, as he used to have a stack of photos of pieces he had owned (what a book they would make!!). always too busy to look through them, although recent circumstances means he has some time on his hands. now would be a good time to ask him. i would assume he had owned it after elliot and snowden.
B