Interesting Choora Inscription

[RobT]

Ausjulius,

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that there possibly is a knife making center in Kyrgizstan that is making traditional style chooras for export to Afghanistan because the Afghanis no longer make their own blades. While I consider this a plausible idea, I do wonder why the country of origin is given in English. I doubt most Afghanis could read it. I had also considered the possibility that these chooras were made as much for foreign troops as for the native Afghan market but then I asked myself, would a foreign soldier care about country of origin on a war bring back and concluded that wasn't likely.

Sincerely,
RobT

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by RobT

Ausjulius,

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that there possibly is a knife making center in Kyrgizstan that is making traditional style chooras for export to Afghanistan because the Afghanis no longer make their own blades. While I consider this a plausible idea, I do wonder why the country of origin is given in English. I doubt most Afghanis could read it. I had also considered the possibility that these chooras were made as much for foreign troops as for the native Afghan market but then I asked myself, would a foreign soldier care about country of origin on a war bring back and concluded that wasn't likely.

Sincerely,
RobT

no idea if they make chooras.. but they make all manner of knives. ". I doubt most Afghanis could read it." yep.. . no the knife is not made to sell to Americans.. you could sell those american troops a sharpened carrot for 50$. like the fake turquoise the indians and afghans sold to the american troops in kabul 20 cents but they were taking 300$ of dollars. nobody made any effort to supply some ethnically accurate, an afghan knife to an american soldier who dosnt know the difference between that and any other knife, whats the difference...... .. its made for the afghans. spending money to import it just for Americans from a place where its not popular makes no sense.
why put English.. why not..? you want them you put Cyrillic that afghans also dont read? or Pushtu in arabic script that tajiks making knives in kyrgizstan dont read? what language do you want them to put on the knife? English is good .. people like it, shows "quality" ive seen uyghur knives with English on them too... lots of fake guns in pakistan have English jibberish too.

this knife is made for afghans to buy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iPEzIg6Fc4 here you can see knife making in Charikar, a pashtun village near kabul.. they make these there too but the quality is so so and the production dosnt meet the demand, mostly due to the conflict situation.. .. hence afghans importing so many knives. its just like the iraqis importing the persians knives in large numbers.

[RobT]

Why not give the country of origin in Pashto? The alphabet is basically Arabic. While most people in Kyrgizstan or Tajikistan don't speak Pashto, surely there are enough there that could write a simple "Made In" phrase. I can never recall seeing an item made in Japan, China or India that was exported to the US with the country of origin in Kanji, Hanzi or Devanagari. I would assume that the bulk of those populations don't speak English either. Furthermore, the country of origin is always given as "Made In" followed by the name of the country as it is commonly known in the US (not Nihon, Zhongguo or Bharata). All non-western and non-new world country of origin labels I have seen follow this format. (Curiously, western and new world exporters often give the country of origin in their native language [ie Hecho En Mexico]).
If the intent of the "Made In K G" phrase on my knife was simply to lend a certain cachet to the item, why not just use gibberish instead of an actual phrase that makes sense? Presumably, the intended customers wouldn't know the difference.

Sincerely,
RobT

[Hagard]

Hi Robt,
I know it's an old thread but do you still have this choora ?
So yes would you be kind enought to post a close-up of the arabic writing on the blade?
Regards

[Bob A]

Somehow I'm not sanguine about Central Asians looking to the US Dept of State to verify proper national abbreviations.

Billboard-size gilt attributions of origin are a little off-putting to me, but then, nothing exceeds like excess.

The plastic seems to wish it was old ivory. The maker, wherever he may be, did go the extra mile in ornamenting his blade, so he deserves an "A" for effort anyway. Interesting knife, to say the least.

[RobT]

Hagard,
Dang! I never saw that. I don’t know for sure which way is up so I have provided two close-ups.

Bob A,
The world is getting smaller and smaller and savvy retailers in every corner of the globe are using market specific hooks to enhance sales so I would not discount Central Asians using an internationally recognized abbreviation to sell their items.
I would be disquieted by the large brass COO on a purportedly old item but this piece looks to be very recently made so I don’t find the designation (in English no less) to be out of place.
My images are light. The actual color of the hilt scales is exactly that of butterscotch amber.
As I said in my original post, the item is well wrought and every bit as lethal as a 19th century version. The maker deserves an A+ for his work and a gold star for carrying on the tradition.

Sincerely,
RobT

[Hagard]

Hi RobT,
I'll send the link to our kind member Turkoman Khan.
I hope he will be able to read and transcribe it.
Regards.

[Turkoman.khan]

Originally Posted by RobT

Hagard,
Dang! I never saw that. I don’t know for sure which way is up so I have provided two close-ups.

Bob A,
The world is getting smaller and smaller and savvy retailers in every corner of the globe are using market specific hooks to enhance sales so I would not discount Central Asians using an internationally recognized abbreviation to sell their items.
I would be disquieted by the large brass COO on a purportedly old item but this piece looks to be very recently made so I don’t find the designation (in English no less) to be out of place.
My images are light. The actual color of the hilt scales is exactly that of butterscotch amber.
As I said in my original post, the item is well wrought and every bit as lethal as a 19th century version. The maker deserves an A+ for his work and a gold star for carrying on the tradition.

Sincerely,
RobT

Perhaps it says here: انشاءاللہ
It sounds like: "inshallah"
It can be translated as: “everything is the will of God”