Unusual Shashka

[Jim McDougall]

As always, the best thing about being confronted with a conundrum like this, is is exciting to research to learn about areas one is not familiar with. The 'ivory' material used here, from my cursory research, I think is very likely to be narwhal, which seems to have the bright white color and different from elephant, mammoth or other tusk material.

With regard to this blade, while it does have the feel of one of the Russian regulation sabers such as the M1881, as I mentioned, I see no evidence of the block ricasso which is consistent on these patterns.
It seems that there was a predominance of European blade imports into the Caucusus, up to the 1850s. While the Chechens were actively producing blades, after the 1850s the Daghestanis began producing their own if I have understood correctly.

The markings on the imported European blades became prevalently copied on the blades produced in the Caucusus; with blades out of Styria using the well known dentated arcs known as 'sickle' marks (in thier parlance the Chechens called these 'gurda' =good blade).
The running wolf, which came from Solingen blades, was copied, but in more realistic form, though the stick figure choppy ones seem to have been copied as well....these termed 'ters maymal' =screaming monkey (?).

In the attached illustrations it does seem the two letters on either side of the running wolf do appear on examples of Solingen blades FROM Solingen (one by W. Clauberg) but I would point out that almost invariably, the running wolf is upside down within surrounding letters or words on German blades.

Note on your blade, the letters AND wolf are upright. This tells us that this is NOT a European blade, and I would suspect a Daghestani product which in which the wolf and letters are duplicated.
Those crosses in the inscription I noted were called 'bees'. These are copies of strange number system used in Styria termed 'antler numbers' with dots and connecting lines, so these are likely copied from Styrian blades.

So rather than a heirloom blade, I would suggest this is possibly a Dahestan made blade in the manner of the Russian regulation form, but made without ricasso as in Caucasian manner. The markings added for 'quality' impression.

The styling of the mounts are as noted 'Circassian' using the Russian skan method of metal work. It is likely these mounts are indeed vintage and silver (84) and used in remounting the shashka in composite.
While this MAY have been done in Georgia as Russian military was indeed present there, I still believe this is likely something fashioned using older components and for a ranking Russian officer.

This is in my opinion FAR from being a commercial fake, and probably a dress shashka for a Russian officer, who was quite likely with notable service in Georgia or Caucasian regions. With the leather of scabbard relatively new its hard to say whether the assembly was done early and scabbard redone or other.

Naturally I am far from having expertise in this field, but from the past several days of research these are opinions I have formed.