Description

An Indian katar with an unusually shaped blade. Seen from the top it has a narrow triangle shape but seen from the side the base of the blade is very thin with a thick armor-piercing tip. At its thickest, the lozenge shaped cross-section of the tip reaches 10mm by 10mm.

The hilt is entirely textbook southern style; holding the blade with rivets between two langets that sit on a characteristic cupped base. The sidebars gently flare out toward their tips and the grips have two balls in the center. The nature of the floral decoration suggests it is probably from the Deccan.

Scabbard

The katar comes in a perfectly preserved scabbard with a black, fine-grained bookbinder's grade leather covering and two pierced brass scabbard endpieces. Some damage and losses to wood and leather at the scabbard mouth.

We have another katar in our current collection that came with this piece, and is in a scabbard of identical materials, style and workmanship. The scabbard is decisively Northern in style, and suggests this Southern katar at some point ended up in service in the North.

This katar (left) compared to the other katar in our collection.
Both pieces came from the same source and have probably been together for a long time.

Because I like to keep both pieces together, I can offer them both as a package for €2600,-.