Mystery Dagger ID Help Needed

[Robert]

Hello Ken and thank you for your interest and reply. The wood is an extremely hard variety and I imagine would not be very easily carved. Do you recognize the carving as being of an Irish or Scottish form? I will add a few more photos showing the carving at the end of the hilt a bit better.

Best,
Robert

[Rich]

Have you noticed that the blade back extends past the guard? To my untrained eye that is not a mark of quality workmanship.
Rich

[Rick]

Repurposed blade?
I seem to remember wavy bladed daggers from small ads in the back pages of Argosy and other similar magazines of the fifties. I think the hilts were spiral with a ball and claw pommel.

[Robert]

Hello Rich,
I agree that the guards fitment is not the best that I have seen either, but the quality workmanship of the blade with its inserted hardened edge I believe more than makes up for it. I have seen and owned many daggers from Southeast Asia both with and without this style of blade that originally were never fitted with a guard of any kind.

Best,
Robert

[Robert]

I seem to remember wavy bladed daggers from small ads in the back pages of Argosy and other similar magazines of the fifties. I think the hilts were spiral with a ball and claw pommel.

Hello Rick,
I not only remember the daggers you are talking about, but somewhere around here I still have one that I paid the grand total of $1.50 for in the late fifties. Most of these were of German manufacture (like the one I still have) but I believe some were of Japanese origin as well. I can with confidence say that the blade of this piece definitely does not come from one of those daggers.

Best,
Robert

P.S. I meant to add that if you look at the first two photos of the complete dagger above you will see one where the blade was just cleaned and one where it has received a vinegar etch. In the lower photos of the blade only you can clearly see the inserted hardened steel edge.

[Kmaddock]

Hi Robert

see this discussion below.

Carving is totally different but I see a lot of similarities in style
due to the hardness the carving is generally quiet primitive.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22655

when you rub the handle does it fee sort of oily, no residue just a greasy feel


Regards

Ken

[Richard G]

Wheat etc. carved on a handle I would normally associate with a bread knife.
Regards
Richard

[Ian]

Hi Robert:

Interesting dagger. I think the hilt likely does not depict wheat, but rather a seed pod with the seeds emerging from the pod. Wheat does not have a pod like this, so something else. The steel (?) ferrule does not look Filipino to me, and the brass disk might well be made from a polished coin (Does it have a slight rim to the edge? Hard to tell from the pics.).

No idea where it is from, but I don't think it is Filipino.

Regards,

Ian.

[Mel H]

Originally Posted by Richard G

Wheat etc. carved on a handle I would normally associate with a bread knife.
Regards
Richard

I do see a lot of elderly bread knives with this style of handle here in the north of England, more often made from pine.