A question on blade markings?

D

DeathDancer

Joined
Dec 20, 2000
Messages
578
While putting away my latest acquisition (BDC from a fellow Forumite), I noticed the little markings on the signed side of the blade near the elbow. Looking at my HI blades, all of them have this mark in addition to the Kamis signatures/marks.

However, what is strange is that the same mark is on a 20 inch Ang Khola that I purchased on eBay, which was advertised as a Ghurka House Ang Khola. (If any of you are old enough, you will remember the Ghurka House company.)

So, does this indicate anything about the "supposed Ghurka House" Ang Khola? Would be nice if it turned out to be from BiGhorka after all. :D
 
I understood that those markings were the Sanskrit characters for "HI". (?)

Now I'll let the experts jump in here.

Thanks,

Norm
 
DeathDancer said:
However, what is strange is that the same mark is on a 20 inch Ang Khola that I purchased on eBay, which was advertised as a Ghurka House Ang Khola. (If any of you are old enough, you will remember the Ghurka House company.)

So, does this indicate anything about the "supposed Ghurka House" Ang Khola? Would be nice if it turned out to be from BiGhorka after all. :D
Click to expand...
DD, Ghurka House marked their khuks with similar marks in the same place like HI does.
But if it's the exact same marks as the HI khuks then it's one of two deals.

One, The person who sold it was mistaken and it is indeed an HI.:D

Two, it is an HI sold by GH that didn't have the marks changed which designates it was one rejected by Pala.

GH sold a lot of khuks rejected by Pala/HI but generally the HI marks were polished off and the GH marks superimposed over them.
I think I could maybe tell if a khuk had one set of marks polished off and another superimposed over it but maybe not.:confused: I'm thinking that there would be a difference between one side and the other at the spine if that were the case.
I think maybe that Mr. Gottlieb disclosed this whenever it was done but only he would know for sure.
 
Yvsa said:
DD, Ghurka House marked their khuks with similar marks in the same place like HI does.
But if it's the exact same marks as the HI khuks then it's one of two deals.

One, The person who sold it was mistaken and it is indeed an HI.:D

Two, it is an HI sold by GH that didn't have the marks changed which designates it was one rejected by Pala.
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I think maybe that Mr. Gottlieb disclosed this whenever it was done but only he would know for sure.
Click to expand...

Yvsa,

Just check the markings against the ones on my Ganga and the ones on the trademark Khukuri at the Himalayan Imports Website. Same marks at what seems to be the right place.

I think that maybe your second explaination is correct. There is no kami mark or signature, in fact the blade seems pretty plain, though of excellent quality. There is a crack in the horn handle right at the bolster, which does't affect it when in use. The butt cap is of the Ghurka House style, a bit thicker than HI's with a little carving around the perimiter. The scabbard is typical GH or first gen HI. As stated, it is a 20 inch Ang Khola with a 14 inch blade, and at 3 pounds it is real chopper.

Thank you and Svashstar very much for the help. I'm glad that my collection has a nice example of an HI Ang Khola, no matter the antecedents! :D
 
DeathDancer said:
The butt cap is of the Ghurka House style, a bit thicker than HI's with a little carving around the perimiter.
Click to expand...
DD it sounds like the scrolled butt cap that HI used when the khuks were being made at Shop 1. Barb's 15" AK has the scrolled butt cap, the only one we have, oops, forgot the one on my Super Salyan but it is sold, just waiting on the buyer too take it.;)
I have to admit the scrolled caps are pretty but they are a real PITA if/when one has to rework the cap so as too keep it from digging into your hand during use.
Getting them changed from the two piece scrolled caps too the one piece butt cap is the one best change that Bill has gotten the kamis too do.:)

Edit:
The flaw that probably caused the rejection by Pala may be the crack near the bolster. It didn't take much for Pala to reject a khukuri and fit and finish played a large part I imagine.
 
...eh eh eh...I'm gonna raise that Salyan over my head, and, "By God Life's cheap out here on the Brazos!"

That'll do until the Rose or AK Bowie

munk
 
That's odd, I thought it was " A munk's got to know his limitations! "
 
as long as the topic was raised,

who uses a cursive, lower-case set of 2 "r's", with the fylfot (swastika)?

I have an absolutely marvelous 12 AK H.I. villager that has perfect weight and handle length by him.

I thought it might have been Amtrak, but he uses block, upper-case letters. These are CURSIVE.

?

anybody?anybody?anybody?
 
Kismet said:
as long as the topic was raised,

who uses a cursive, lower-case set of 2 "r's", with the fylfot (swastika)?

I have an absolutely marvelous 12 AK H.I. villager that has perfect weight and handle length by him.

I thought it might have been Amtrak, but he uses block, upper-case letters. These are CURSIVE.

?

anybody?anybody?anybody?
Click to expand...

Raju Rasaili, the "RailRoad Kami."
 
I dunno, Kis, but it sounds a lot like Amtrak. That guy is a master of the 12" blades. I have a 12" siru and had a 12" AK by him. Both were as perfect as i've ever seen an HI khuk. He also makes a humdinger of a kobra.

Those lowercase cursive R's are throwing me for a loop.

Jake
 
I've been curious about the markings on a villager I have. Kumar & The Helpers "approved" it- that's evident from the 6 pt star & the omnipresent

"
=o=
"

symbol (didn't come out quite right but you get the idea). But it also has 2 strange characters above the HI marks, and 2 more in the usual place near the bend. Hopefully the print out I just made will help me identify the Sanskrit letters tonite. If you want to figure alpha markings out, this is the best site I found:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sanskrit.htm


AA
 
Kismet said:
as long as the topic was raised,

who uses a cursive, lower-case set of 2 "r's", with the fylfot (swastika)?

I have an absolutely marvelous 12 AK H.I. villager that has perfect weight and handle length by him.

I thought it might have been Amtrak, but he uses block, upper-case letters. These are CURSIVE.

?

anybody?anybody?anybody?
Click to expand...

I just got an AK villager with the same markings. Mine was advertised as being made by Amtrack, and the swastika is on my other Amtrack blades marked R.R. I don't think those are lowercase cursive R's, though. On my blade they look something like this:

__
/ l
\ l

Do villagers ordinarily have uppercase Roman letters on them? My other villager (another AK) I assume was made by Sher- it was purchased earlier this year and has the rising sun mark- but has characters I don't recognize - one looks similar to the ones above, one doesn't.

Jeremy

Edit- well, the two marks look kinda like the one above- the ascii characters move a little when I post, but that's the general idea. The character looks like a blocky upside-down U with the left leg bent out and then back in.
 
Yvsa said:
DD it sounds like the scrolled butt cap that HI used when the khuks were being made at Shop 1. Barb's 15" AK has the scrolled butt cap, the only one we have, oops, forgot the one on my Super Salyan but it is sold, just waiting on the buyer too take it.;)
I have to admit the scrolled caps are pretty but they are a real PITA if/when one has to rework the cap so as too keep it from digging into your hand during use.
Getting them changed from the two piece scrolled caps too the one piece butt cap is the one best change that Bill has gotten the kamis too do.:)

Edit:
The flaw that probably caused the rejection by Pala may be the crack near the bolster. It didn't take much for Pala to reject a khukuri and fit and finish played a large part I imagine.
Click to expand...

Well, Yvsa, I sorta got confirmation on the markings in question. I forgot that I still have a matched set of Ghurka House Cheetlangs, and low and behold, their logo marks are on the blades!

It has been said that the Himalayan Imports marks are "HI" in Sanskrit. Well the second mark on the Ghurka House Cheetlang is exactly like the first mark on the HI logo.

Indirectly, I can infer that the Ang Khola I have is at least an HI product. And directly, since I have the Ghurka House Cheetlangs, I know that it wasn't made by Ghurka House.

Really silly, though, because I enjoy the GH Cheetlangs very much!
 
It's always great to have a mystery solved. Glad you figured it out DD.:D
 
Just a reminder to any who forgot or new guys...HI does *not* have a swastika mark. The mark is a fylfot.

The fylfot is an old symbol used in many cultures...it was reversed and it's meaning perverted as the Nazi swastika.

.
 
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