Rare Mughal Dagger

[ALEX]

now when I got your attention:-) there's a growing trend hitting the market, and particularly eBay, of mughal kundan imitations. Not to discredit a particular seller (as there's no mentioning of word "kundan"), but to educate those who may not realize this is not kundan, as it looks like some do not know, based on prices and feedbacks. So look at the below closeups: the real kundan requires stones to be placed (pushed) into carved patterns into melted gold. What we see here is a clever surface application with twisted wire and stones being glued on top. The work is actually quite sloppy, there's even some glue residue left and I'd feel sorry for anyone during Mughal times who'd dare to produce such "quality" - that person would be expelled from the workshop and loose an arm. Nowadays, this is what buyers do:-). One can write a few pages of what's "not right" with those daggers, but pictures worth a few pages more...