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Originally Posted by mariusgmioc
Acid etching MAY be an "old" (please define what you mean by "old") technique, but Persians did NOT use it before 19th century, and even then for very specific and few items (mostly decorative, historicism - known as Qajar revival - blades decorated with religious texts).
Afghans... even less so.
In my oppinion, any acid etched Afghan blade, raises serious concerns about its autenthicity as a genuine traditional weapon and points into the direction of souvenirs market.
My two cents.
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You are correct: my antennae were twitching :-) and this is why I posted it here.
However, I have serious doubts about dating it to the late 20th century souvenir manufacture: the handle on a " souvenir" sword sold to a Western visitor to be hung on the wall was unlikely to be so severely damaged and deep patination of the tang suggests some significant age ( compare to the tangs of WWII period Japanese swords ). The manner of profuse etching is very similar to the Qajar " revival" swords of the 19th and many " Afghani" blades were imported from Persia (and India). The overall condition does not bother me very much: we have multiple swords of the 17-18th centuries in just as good or even better shape. Spurious dating is a distinct possibility, but I see no reason why this khyber could not have been made in the 19th century, although later than 1813, coincidentally with the Persian " revival" swords, say, 1830-1880. Any objective arguments against it?