New shamshir: hoping for a diamond in the rough.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by 10thRoyal

I am now convinced that whatever my new shamshir is, I'm not entirely sure it wants to be etched. Maybe it's not wootz. Maybe it's laminated. At this point I'm not even sure I care which it is. I'm just going to be content with what I have.

I think it looks good. My 2 cents is that it is wootz. Different steels have different levels of contrast.

Mariusgmioc Could this be a local Afghan ore processed by a Iranian smith thus a slightly different contrast? I have read that Afghans, I don't know which tribe, were making their own crystalline wootz blades. It is possible that they were extracting their own ore rather than importing cakes of wootz from Iran or India.

How long is the blade from the point to the guard?

[Sakalord364]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

I think it looks good. My 2 cents is that it is wootz. Different steels have different levels of contrast.

Mariusgmioc Could this be a local Afghan ore processed by a Iranian smith thus a slightly different contrast? I have read that Afghans, I don't know which tribe, were making their own crystalline wootz blades. It is possible that they were extracting their own ore rather than importing cakes of wootz from Iran or India.

How long is the blade from the point to the guard?

Interesting, do you remember where you read it? Afghans no doubt must have used their own ore alongside imported cakes and blades