Afghan/Khyber Knife

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by ariel

Hi Norman,
This is an honest khyber, no faking here. Regretfully those Pashtuns virtually never put the date on their weapons, and there are no objective features by which we can date them. So we can only look at the condition and guess. 1840? 1940? 1980? There are pics from the times of recent Russian occupation showing mujaheddins brandishing khybers. Field conditions determined everything. Fourty years of sun, rains,cold, heat are more than enough to age and degrade all organic materials. Yours has worn out scabbard, but the sword itself is in a very good condition and although blade was cleaned from patina, the bone handle is white.I wouldn’ t hazard a guess about its age, but it doesn’t matter much: it is a true fighter that was meant to kill, not to hang on a wall.
Enjoy!

Indeed dates are always very speculative.

I've a very fine wootz Choora named and dated to 1901 with a sheath in of similar manufacture... I personally find the weapons from the region the hardest to date accurately.

Gavin