What is the correct hilt for this blade?

[David R]

Stumped! But at a guess I would say late in period, revival and made for a Western style hilt. Also... what a find! Russian Imperial perhaps.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by David R

Stumped! But at a guess I would say late in period, revival and made for a Western style hilt. Also... what a find! Russian Imperial perhaps.

I agree: magnificient blade of Kara Taban wootz. I would imagine a truly old and artistic handle of any Indian style or just a good Persian shamshir handle. I would stay away from overdecorated modern Indian handles: they would devalue the blade and scream “ composite”.

As to the Russian Imperial…. No way. Russians never created really beautiful complicated wootz patterns. Anosov was given exact recipe for making wootz ingots and an admonition to forge it at low temperature. That was the extent of his “ re-discovery” of bulat . On top of that, he so thoroughly misrepresented the written recipe he used that his followers ( except for a couple of technicians actually working for him) never managed to reproduce “his” process.

All the existent and available examples of his manufacture including the yataghan he sent to Faraday with a letter begging for the latter’s approval of his “discovery” were just mediocre Sham. Faraday never even acknowledged Anosov’s letter:-)