New shamshir: hoping for a diamond in the rough.

[10thRoyal]

I picked up a nondescriptly named "curved sword" at an auction recently and may have done alright for myself despite my initial disappointment at the blade. From the auction photo I could see some form of calligraphy on the blade but not much else. The grip looks almost like one of the "modernized military Khyber knife" grips I've seen on some sabers from areas around and in Afghanistan. When I got the sword, there was no visible wootz, just some oddly twinkling crystalline dots amid the rust. The cartouche seemed promising though so I went ahead and cleaned a portion of the blade and did a minor test etch (please don't judge the etch I'm still figuring that part out hahaha). My progress so far showed most of my initial worries were unfounded. I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts. I'll post an update when I can manage a respectable etching. The cartouche has a "172" at the bottom of it. Assuming the rest of the inscription is fiction, I'm assuming that might point to a Gregorian 1759 manufacturing date for the blade?

[Battara]

This is indeed a diamond in the rough. It looks like a Persian trade blade, but I'll let the wootz experts confirm this.

I agree with the Afghan hilt attribution. Congratulations.

[Ian]

I'm nowhere near a wootz expert, but the pattern seems very linear for wootz, with parallel lines bunched together near the sharpened edge. Looks maybe like a laminated blade to me, but let's hear from our more knowledgeable members.

[GePi]

Hi,
I agree that is a nice example of a late 19th century Afghan shamshir, and the blade earlier than the hilt.

I am quite certain the blade is wootz. These parallel lines along the cutting edge are a feature that is commonly seen on shamshir blades with nice watered wootz patterns, I have attached a close up of the pattern of my own Afghan shamshir that I managed to grab earlier this year.

As for the cartouche I don't think that it is a Persian trade blade, rather locally made.
These a bit crude looking single cartouches I have seen before on Afghan blades, I have added two mounted in pulwar hilts that seem to made with the same stamp.
Those two have written amal-e assadullah esfahani whereas your's has the bandeye shah-e velayat, the second part of the generic Persian double cartouche, but otherwise they look quite similar to me.

I feel the date seems a bit early, but on the other hand I don't think it would make much sense to fake a date that is after all still not that early, so it might be genuine.

[Ian]

Thank you GePi. As noted already, I'm no expert on wootz! I have seen similar linear markings along the edge of some laminated Filipino blades, which prompted my question about whether this was in fact wootz. You have provided clear evidence it is. That's a lovely blade that you have shown.


Nice pick-up 10th Royal!

[Norman McCormick]

Hi,
The hilt configuration would suggest it has undergone a local interpretation of a Western style sword hilt and guard much as has happened to this Khyber knife of mine. You'll notice the scabbard even has a drag although this is entirely pointless as the scabbard is far too short to be anywhere near ground level. This adaptation to the chape is just a rote copy of British sword scabbards of the period. As far as I could determine searching the net this was done at the end of the 19thC when Britain had influence in the region and locals were styling their military along Western lines. Nice sword and I will look forward to seeing the blade when cleaned up a little.
Regards,
Norman.

[Battara]

Another look changes my mind into the blade being a tight pattern damascus, which as Ian has said, has been found on some Moro pieces.

[Battara]

Here are pictures of my stolen gunong from years ago, with a close up of a wootz looking blade structure similar to your blade.

[10thRoyal]

Fantastic info from all of y'all, it is all very much appreciated . And Norman, that was my exact thought! I wasn't able to find another example of this hilt type on a shamshir but it did not seem to be out of the realm of possibility. The "new" hilt is unfortunately of low quality. My bottle of Ferric Chloride just arrived so I'll have some (hopefully) pretty pictures shortly.

And beautiful blades GePi. One of those pulwar blades would really make this a piece to display instead of the current grip which looks like the work of a Khyber Pass gunsmith, hahaha.

I'm open to it being laminated honestly. At the very least it was done well and isn't some tourist piece. Hopefully will get some clarity soon.

[GePi]

Originally Posted by 10thRoyal

Fantastic info from all of y'all, it is all very much appreciated . And Norman, that was my exact thought! I wasn't able to find another example of this hilt type on a shamshir but it did not seem to be out of the realm of possibility. The "new" hilt is unfortunately of low quality. My bottle of Ferric Chloride just arrived so I'll have some (hopefully) pretty pictures shortly.

And beautiful blades GePi. One of those pulwar blades would really make this a piece to display instead of the current grip which looks like the work of a Khyber Pass gunsmith, hahaha.

I'm open to it being laminated honestly. At the very least it was done well and isn't some tourist piece. Hopefully will get some clarity soon.

I find these actually quite interesting, and like the khyber knifes with militarized hilts they are legit and there are quite a few examples still around. Here are two from Artzi, one with a more simple wootz pattern, perhaps local, but the other one with a really nice older Persian blade.

[10thRoyal]

Originally Posted by GePi

I find these actually quite interesting, and like the khyber knifes with militarized hilts they are legit and there are quite a few examples still around. Here are two from Artzi, one with a more simple wootz pattern, perhaps local, but the other one with a really nice older Persian blade.

Those are excellent examples! The second has an almost identical style grip to my own. I guess I need to do a more thorough search of examples.

I managed a marginally better etching with the Ferric Chloride. It does look more like wootz towards the edge now but gets less so towards the spine. Almost like it was heat treated composed of multiple steels.

[mariusgmioc]

Yes, it appears to be Persian wootz but the etching is very poor.
You need to polish the blade to grit 2000 or even 2500 to be able to better reveal the pattern.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21732

[Sakalord364]

Originally Posted by GePi

I find these actually quite interesting, and like the khyber knifes with militarized hilts they are legit and there are quite a few examples still around. Here are two from Artzi, one with a more simple wootz pattern, perhaps local, but the other one with a really nice older Persian blade.

10thRoyal it’s interesting the hilt on your example appears irregularly made, perhaps the smith was a novice or it’s just a result of wear and tear.

An example in original condition looks quite nice actually.

These sword hilts were imitations of Afghan army pattern hilts, and were handmade by local smiths and sold to officers who wanted a fancy private purchase sword instead of their issued sword. That why I think the quality of the hilt is variable, since each smith made them by hand and one smith might be more skilled than the other.

The army issue swords these were inspired by were made in the military factory with modern European machinery, which is why they were quite uniform quality wise

[10thRoyal]

It has been two months from my first post. Etching this shamshir has taken me to the edge of sanity. mariusgmioc, your comment cut me deep. I have polished and etched polish and etched and polished and etched. I'm now using a mix of JSP 14k gold testing solution and Everclear Grain alcohol. Neither my hillbilly Nital nor Ferric Chloride showed the pattern I wanted. I have used up to 8000 grit. The best result I got was this:

And yes I know that isn't good.

At the brink of sanity I realized that I DID have a shamshir in my collection with a nice wootz pattern, so it polished a portion of that blade and etched it with my best procedure. Below is the unetched side and the etched side:




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.

[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

[RobT]

Hi All,

Part of Dr Anna Feuerbach’s doctoral thesis (Crucible Steel in Central Asia: Production, Use and Origins) deals with crucible steel manufacture in Merv Turkmenistan. The southern border of Turkmenistan abuts Afghanistan and Merv is in the southern part of Turkmenistan, Dr Feuerbach also examined crucible steel manufacturing in Uzbekistan which also shares a border with Afghanistan so it doesn’t seem to be unlikely that crucible steel was made in Afghanistan also.

Sincerely,
RobT

[Interested Party]

I believe Dmitry Miloserdov's Afghan Weapons book mentioned weapons production along the Indian border as well.

[mariusgmioc]

To me it looks like Persian wootz.
Why doesn't come out as in high contrast, I don't know as it can have many causes.
I found out the best etching results are on surfaces polished to 2500-3000 grit. Higher polish gets worse results as the etchant does not "bite" the surface.
I got best results with Nital 4% but this needs to be top quality etchant. I found out that some Nital suppliers don't respect the advertised concentreation and you don't get the expected results. Most of the times, I needed to apply Nital more times.
As for the last few years I wasn't able to get Nital anymore, I started experimenting with ferric chloride, in commercially available concentrations, then diluted but without any rigurous measuring. Got generally good results with ferric too.
I found out that even on the same blade there may be areas that display hugh contrast wootz pattern and some areas that won't display any pattern at all or a very faint one.
My guess is that if the blade is reheated it may loose partly or completely the wootz pattern. I suspect this may be the case of your blade.

[10thRoyal]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

To me it looks like Persian wootz.
Why doesn't come out as in high contrast, I don't know as it can have many causes.
I found out the best etching results are on surfaces polished to 2500-3000 grit. Higher polish gets worse results as the etchant does not "bite" the surface.
I got best results with Nital 4% but this needs to be top quality etchant. I found out that some Nital suppliers don't respect the advertised concentreation and you don't get the expected results. Most of the times, I needed to apply Nital more times.
As for the last few years I wasn't able to get Nital anymore, I started experimenting with ferric chloride, in commercially available concentrations, then diluted but without any rigurous measuring. Got generally good results with ferric too.
I found out that even on the same blade there may be areas that display hugh contrast wootz pattern and some areas that won't display any pattern at all or a very faint one.
My guess is that if the blade is reheated it may loose partly or completely the wootz pattern. I suspect this may be the case of your blade.

Nital is what I have the most experience with so that's why I gravitated towards it. I have a Material Science degree and have etched and polished more metal cross sections than I want to remember. For my last few etching attempts I only used nital that was mixed fresh to avoid any degradation of the ethanol. I know that Everclear and gold testing solution are exactly lab grade but SDS for the gold testing solution showed it as being 50 to 70 percent nitric acid, with some sds's showing the addition of a few percent hydrochloric. All in all it should give a nearly identical etch to lab grade nital. I found that the ferric chloride etched metal oxidized almost immediately with contact with air, leaving a nasty brown finish.

The reheating causing a loss of contrast is an interesting thought for sure. One interesting thing I noticed from my earlier etches which were way over etched was the near lack of wootz figuring near the blade spine. I'm wondering if the spine was heated at some point. Or potentially the spine is a different steel all together. In the photo posted below, the spine is to the right side of the image.