Afghanistan knife

ron_m80 said:
My favorite part is that there is some thriving tourist trade in a traditionally nomadic, tribal, Islamic country. Yup tourist junk makes alot of sense to me too.

Google shows quite a few Kuhkri's coming out of Afganistan too.
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There is plenty of tourist junk coming out of Nepal and India too. If this is a modern piece then we should locate the maker and have them ship over a few hundred more. The workmanship looks very good. Can you share additional photos of the pommel and bolster, the spine, and perhaps the other side of the blade?

n2s
 
Notoriously hard to properly date these things effectively, as many carry no marks at all, are almost never dated and have been made the same way with the same materials for time immemorial and imported/exported all over the continent.
I will say that it is not the usual khukuri shape that we see and is reminiscent (to me) of a butchers khukuri, which would not necessarily negate it's usage during war. The hall marks on it may give a clear lead as to lineage and date of manufacture, but i myself am unfamiliar with them.
An expert such as Berkeley or Spiraltwista whom are versed in markings may be able to tell you more. You can post this on their forum at IKRHS.com, or with your permission i can move this to the H.I. Cantina where they may see it when they pop in.

My feeling is that, yes, this particular khukuri could possibly date from the era around WWII, but i don't believe it would be much earlier than that. I will be the first to admit i could be mistaken. Many times these blades are rehandled and reserviced for usage and are kept in the family for many, many generations.

You have a fine looking khukuri there, in nice shape. i would keep it as a momento of service and use it as a display. I would never put it to use as a chopper. If it is any type of historical khukuri, it has already likely earned it's retirement in spades. If i were to use it at all it would only be for self defense in my home.

Contrary to what some may choose to believe, there are many fine examples of antique khukuri floating around now thanks to the sale and dispersal of the Palace Arsenal Horde from Kathmandu. Virtually all the khukuri from this horde are Pre-WWI and WWII specimens with many being documented as being far earlier than that, going back into the early 1800's and are national treasures that were basically stolen from the people of nepal by deal brokers after the King of Nepal was deposed by the Maoists. Someone is making a pretty penny from this horde sale and it sure as heck isnt the desperately poor people of Nepal whose per capita income is less than $200/year.
 
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Aww, C'Mon Karda,

Can't you admit that this is just a hunk of cheap, tourist trash? We all know that no knives can be that old because they get used to death! ;)
 
I brought one home very similar to it and have never checked it out. It COULD be an original piece but you would be shocked at how crafty the locals are at producing and "aging" knives and bayonets. I found an Arisaka bayonet of all things I was sure was on original until closer inspection revealed it to be a fake. Even if it is a repro, it's still a very cool hand made item brought back from a war zone a that alone makes at worthy of going on the wall somewhere. I also have a BFK they swear was made from the armor off a T-72: Don't care if it was or not, it's cool and my boys will inherit it as something daddy brought back from the war.

Some of the stuff you can buy at the bazaars comes out of China and Pakistan though as the locals are pretty savy at securing anything they think a GI will buy. The vast majority of the nice original stuff has been gone for several years now and what's left is often selling for more than you can buy it is the US as Haji knows how to use google and is pricing accordingly. Lots of Enfield bayo's were $20 when I was there and now they are getting $100 for the same make you can but here for $80
 
Don't ever underestimate how clever Afghan merchants can be. And yes, one of their main money-making industries over there is making and faking weapons. I spend a lot more time on gun boards, and the level of sophistication that these guys have in making fakes boggles the mind. Things like making the correct fonts for the stamps they use to reproduce Martini rifles that were "left" by the British. Even the proof marks can be there. A knife is child's play for a person that can carve a functional AK 47 clone out of a slab of low-grade iron. As for tourists, what do you think the merchants see the hundreds of thousands of military and UN people over there as? How many of them do you think have been suckered into buying some "antique" weapon to take back home to show their friends? A heck of a lot. And then when they leave, the merchant reaches under the counter and pulls out another "antique". I have seen some of their Webley revolver clones first hand. They were really, really good. They had a better patina than my real ones did. And as JWRobinson noted, they can use google as well as anybody else. You can mock me all you want. But I would be willing to bet that if you took that to an expert, he would back up my opinion. You don't just find rare knives sitting in a bazaar over there. Those bazaars have been picked over by everybody for the last how many years? You can indulge in the fantasy if it makes you happy. We all like to think that there are hidden treasures to be had for next to nothing. It does happen once in a while. And it is a nifty knife. But at the end of the day, I wouldn't pay any more for it than I would for a Pakistani knock-off.

-Mb

(edit) Check out this link. Even Wiki has articles on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass_Copy
 
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The_Monkeyboy said:
I would be willing to bet that if you took that to an expert, he would back up my opinion.
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So am I to take your opinion on par with that of an expert? There are many "EXPERTS" in the world. Not all of them are impressive people.
 
Regardless of it's origin it's still cool and not what I would call tourist junk. No tourists is Kabul yet;) Tourist junk is something you pick up it Cozemel, Rome etc (some place SAFE you can visit with your family). Item's from a conflict zone during a time of war have a history and uniqueness of their own even if it's just the fact you got it during the war. Your kids and grandkids won't care if it was an original Gurka piece. They will think of it entirely differently. The only reason it's origin matters is if you plan to sell it to a collector, a most of them have seen and can ID the "fakes" by now.
 
ron_m80 said:
So am I to take your opinion on par with that of an expert? There are many "EXPERTS" in the world. Not all of them are impressive people.
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Wow. Just wow. Did I say I was an expert? Did I make any claim to that effect? All I did was point out that it wasn't likely to be the rare antique that several posters wanted it to be. I also provided reasons why my hypothesis was likely to be true, and provided a link to help support it. And two of you have come out like offended prima donnas for anybody having the gall to point out that Occam's Razor is normally right. I have to say, it seems to me that civility on this board seems to have gone down dramatically since the last time I visited. And if ad hominem attacks are the best you can come up with, you have already lost the argument. If all you are basing your rebuttal on is the online equivalent of "You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny" or "People with low post counts should be seen and not heard", you don't really have a leg to stand on.

As for taking my opinion as that of an expert, who are you to judge? What exactly is your background? Exactly how long have you been dealing with antique weapons? How many of them do you actually own? And how much of your "knowledge" of antiques comes from what you manage to glean off of non-antique related forums online? How about hand-made historical weapons? How many of these have you gotten to handle and examine in-depth? What about fakes? Do you have any background in historical metallurgy? Woodworking? Tool manufacture? What exactly are you basing your critique of my knowledge on? My low post count and the fact that my point differs from yours? If that is all you have, perhaps it would be a better use of your time to do a bit more research on topics before piping in with unsupported arguments.

-Mb
 
Lighten up Monkeyboy, no need for you to go nuts over this, if you readnmy argument, I question the source and economic motivation to locate a khuk in Afghanistan.

You may be surprised by the number of bonafide experts who do visit and share their opinions here on BF. The fact that you will assume that a 16" blade can be "used to death" shares with us that you still have learning to do about blades.
 
Lets Discuss the topic instead of each other gentlemen. How many times does this need to be said on this forum. We are all welcome to our own opinions, lets keep it civil and on topic. This will be the only warning given.
 
As an example of blades being "used to death", I would present the falchion. Based on contemporary texts and art work, it was one of the more common forms of medieval swords from the 11th through 16th centuries. But almost none of them survive today. The reason is because the shape of the blade readily lent itself to agricultural purposes. When they were not being used in warfare, they were quickly put to use as chopping tools. And in that role, they were mostly used to the point where they were destroyed over the years. A kukri, in a primarily agricultural setting such as rural Afghanistan, would be much more likely to be used as a chopping tool than something like, say, a bayonet. How many people here have used theirs that way? I would venture to say more than a few. Now add to that the lack of resources to replace tools easily that is characteristic of low-income, resource-poor countries in the middle of wars. How likely do you think it is that such a tool would be allowed to sit, unused for decades? Much less be in that kind of condition, sitting in a stall for somebody to just "happen" across? Before you go stating that I am "sharing" my ignorance, why don't you consider my arguments? Most of your posts thus far have been attacks on me, not any possible reason that I am wrong.

-Mb
 
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having been to Afghanistan, and saw many, many hodgie shops and bazaars,(not all of them on base, or fobs either) there is nothing i would buy there that i would think was in any way real or not faked. as for not used to death, i've seen 5 lb sledge hammers that were worn through to the handle, claw hammers with the claws worn away, saw an anvil once that was so used you could almost eat cereal out of the dent in the top. if something can be used to death Afghans will do it.

as for bazaars/hodgie shops, we stopped at one that was the size of a yard shed,(6x8) it would have taken an hour to see all the crap in this hut. european Marlboro's, red bull, DVDs, cell phones, ipads, iphones, dvd players, mp3 players, benchmade switch blades, eotechs, aimpoints, Leupold hollow sights, magpul slings, 511 uniforms, north face clothes, and even Lego's. i bought a dvd of the new "true grit" movie 2 months before it hit theatres, i wouldn't put anything past an afghan. only saw 1 enfield tho(in use), seems odd since its the 2nd most popular gun there, who knew.:rolleyes:
still have a few extrem ratio knives from over there.
a kukri would be childs play.
you can get tourist visas now too.
my opinion, if it came from Afghanistan, its a fake, but it is a knife from Afghanistan, so not a total fake. you got something that most on here don't, a real war relic, no matter if it was made last year or last century. enjoy it.
 
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From what I've been told MOST of the original stuff (rifles, blades) is gone and has been for 3 or 4 years so you have to be extremely knowledgeable to tell the difference. There were literally tons of Enfield muskets, Sniders, Martini-Henry's and others there in 05 going from $150 to $300. Not many fakes at the time and they were easy to spot. However, the typically GI would point out things like "you miss-spelled Winchester dumb ass" to the vendors and they would just smile and go back to the drawing board. The pieces were getting better every month and a little harder to spot. Most of the stampings they used for proof marks were off back then.
I was able to send back about 20 pre 1898 rifles though and all but one are 100% legit. Afghans don't throw anything away and that AO has been trampled on from so many armies it's hard to count so centuries of warfare made lots of items available. When the originals were drying up though, the locals realized the loss of income they were facing and did/do what any entrepreneur would do...make more.

Don't even get me started on bayonets, as I sent back hundreds of original blades. The fakes at that time however were not new production so to speak as shops in Kabul would take otherwise collectable Mauser bayo's and add saw-backs. I tried to tell them they were more valuable unaltered but they wouldn't listen. Another trick was to grind the original makers stamp off and add one from a rarer variety.
 
They make khukuri's (three syllables) in Afghanistan as weapons. Ask at Bernard Levine's forum here. at BF.
 
Lets try this again. Unless you have actual pertinent information about the khukuri shown and something to say about it that is more than speculation, then perhaps it would be a good idea if you started another thread about afghan fakery.
I happen to know that there are real nepalese khukuri being sold in that region (both old and new) as my nephew was there on his last tour and sent me one along with a pair of cheap Dhankutas.

Unless anyone has more to add in answer to the OP's question i may just lock this one down.
 
I would place an appeal to the OP to get some more photos of the very interesting (if controversial) Kukri up on this thread so that perhaps some informed conversation can resume. Good points have been made by both sides. I will concede that it sounds like, even lacking tourists, there is a trade in reproduced goods in Afghanistan. The gun thing I was well aware of. I will add that those guns were not made to sell per se but rather to shoot.

Maybe we can get some more picture. A good picture of the spine, the handle, and a pommel end shot would be good.

Despite some sentiment to the contrary, I find it good to hope for something good to come of this discovery. Maybe it turns out to just be a well made kukri of dubious origin...which leaves it as a well made kukri.
 
I think that a lot of posters are missing the part where the OP said it came from a friend of the owner. NOT from a bazaar or street vendor. I spent 2 1/2 yrs in Iran and the rural,dirt poor people would would come up with the strangest gifts when you did them a friendly favor,gesture,helping hand. I was given part of an antique British silver tea set for using my jeep to pull a broken donkey cart out of the mud and taking the owner several miles home with his goods.The donkey trotted along side!:D-I can easily see how the OP could end up with an authentic piece.--KV
 
kvaughn said:
I think that a lot of posters are missing the part where the OP said it came from a friend of the owner. NOT from a bazaar or street vendor. I spent 2 1/2 yrs in Iran and the rural,dirt poor people would would come up with the strangest gifts when you did them a friendly favor,gesture,helping hand. I was given part of an antique British silver tea set for using my jeep to pull a broken donkey cart out of the mud and taking the owner several miles home with his goods.The donkey trotted along side!:D-I can easily see how the OP could end up with an authentic piece.--KV
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Excellent anecdote. We've probably scared the OP off with the needless bickering. Hope he comes back with more pictures. I think he's really got something there.
 
There were several Gurkha regiments in Afghanistan around 1878-1880 in the 2'nd British war over there. I have no idea what their Khukuris looked like at that time. But the British with the Gurkhas lost a lot of people then. Who knows :)
 
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