Old Firangi with unidentified maker's name

[Ian]

Jens:

There is a narrow fuller running along the back of the blade on each side. In the bottom picture above, showing the marks, the top view has the edge to the top of the picture and the bottom view has the edge to the bottom of the picture. Which means the maker's name was stamped upside down in the top view -- looks sloppy to me. I imagine this was produced by a stamping tool which was used on one side and then the blade was turned over to stamp the other side. Perhaps this speaks to a degree of mechanisation of the blade manufacturing process. Could this have been a European trade blade that was produced in some quantity for the Indian market?

BTW the type face looks very close to an English font called Caslon Old Style (dating from 1725), one of the Venetian family of fonts used by early printers. In particular, the serifs on the "T" and "L" suggest Caslon Old Style. See: http://graphicdesign.sfcc.spokane.cc...s.htm#oldstyle

Ian.