An extremely unique Indopersian double bladed short sword, ID berde!

[manishkulkarni]

Hi All, recently purchased this from a UK dealer. Not that I'm a expert by any stretch of imagination, but haven't quite seen anything like it ever before, don't even know what to call it...! Circa late 19th century but possibly earlier. Both blades and edges are pretty sharp for their age. Overall 17 inch, blades approx 14 inch.

Anybody has a view on it's name, age, origin, purpose...?! Could this have a scabbard...?! Potentially a bespoke, made to order piece one reckons...?!

Would be grateful for any information! Thanks.

[Ian]

Very odd. Condition looks more recent than 19th C.

[ariel]

I agree. Optimistically late 20th, realistically 21st century. I remember seeing a couple of them on E-bay over the past couple of years.

Pretty risky and impractical design: one would almost instinctively try to catch the opponent’s blade between the double blades. With the resultant loss of fingers.

[mariusgmioc]

To me, this looks like a very recent fantasy weapon.

Absolutely not practical as it cannot provide a stable grip.

[manishkulkarni]

Thanks guys, apreciate your comments! Although a bit startled that you don't assess this as belonging to 19th century. I acquired this from Lanes Armoury which apparently is an old and very respected business operated by two brothers who're well-known experts. I've the CoA however doesn't state the era but does mention Indonesian. I spoke with one of the partners and their view is late 19th century and they bought it as part of a collection from an old english family.

{Links to sellers' pages with active items listed are not allowed.}

Oh well, I'll keep hold of it, an unusual contraption and I don't believe these guys would sell fakes being in the business for some 50 yrs!

[Tim Simmons]

http://www.thelanesarmoury.co.uk/

probably best to make no comments.

[David]

Originally Posted by manishkulkarni

Oh well, I'll keep hold of it, an unusual contraption and I don't believe these guys would sell fakes being in the business for some 50 yrs!

There is a big difference between intentionally selling fakes and being terribly misinformed about what you are selling. The one thing i will say about the sellers is that they do not seem to specialize or even focus on Indo-persian edged weapons so their expertise in this genre of collecting has certainly not been established.
As has already been pointed out, this would be a very impractical weapon. If it looked like there was once a way to attach this to a shaft to be used as a spear that might make some sense, but as a hand weapon this would undoubtably be a failure in design.Though it appears to be well made i personally would lean towards late 20th century fantasy weapon. Sorry. It's not really a matter of the respectability of the sellers as much as simple observation and simple logic of how hand weapons work (or don't in this case) that lead me to this assessment.