Enamel hilt - age and place

[B.I]

jens,
one day you will surprise us all by asking an easy question!!
however, i wont hold my breath just in case
the colours in enammelling has been studied but i have yet to read anything convincing, or anyone that is willing to commit past jaipur or lucknow.
the colours within your hilt seem lucknow to me, but i have never really looked deeply into the subject.
manuel keene wrote an interesting article called 'the enamel road, from siena,paris,london and lisbon leads to lucknow' which attempts to route the history of this style back through european sources. he does cote other places with similar colours, including tim's hyderabad offer.
i must guiltily admit i have only skimmed through the article, but did note that he puts a question mark after his regions, and also uses the 'mughal/deccan' description which is a little vague for an apparantely in-depth article. he also included the 'hyderabad' enammelled archers rings in the al-sabah collection. i have never believed these authentic and the insertion of them in his article put me off reading much further. its also interesting to note that the article itself was in a book that was partly sponsored by al-sabah!!
so, i should read the article and offer more, but i know you have it as well so shall continue to lazilly state 'lucknow' but remain open to other theories.
the hilt itself offers little clues, as the shape was widely used in both the deccan and the mughal north. i would happily give it a late 18thC date, but refuse to back it up academically (i'm just a collector, i dont need to!)
you obviously have an opinion, mr nordlunde, so come clean