jambiya dagger

[kai]

Originally Posted by BANTARU

It does look a bit like Rhino and not like normal horn. Any ways repeat the test as in the pic below. If you see the orange glow, you are in luck.

Hello Bantaru, welcome to the forum!

I agree that the hilt you showed us in post #12 does seem to be rhino: it does exhibit the orange peel look typical for old/weathered rhino horn and a close examination under magnification will probably show the characteristic microstructure (a 10x magnifying lens does help a lot with checking details of antique pieces, especially at stores, etc.); placing a strong light source next to the hilt often helps to observe this feature (a small LED pocket light is usually enough and also very versatile when checking out stuff).

However, the color is certainly not suitable for identifying rhino horn which can come in just about any color; also water buffalo horn can have a very wide range of colors - same-o with cattle, etc. ...

I'm attaching pics of a hilt that has a pommel as well as a ferrule crafted from horn that, from color and texture, would still be advertised by many (even experienced and well established) dealers as rhino but certainly isn't! (I believe this example is from patinated albino carabao horn.)

Regards,
Kai