Help identifying a Khukuri please

Geez, I hate disagreeing with Uncle Bill, but I think this a well made Nepalese khukuri. Besides the overall shape the silver bolster indicates a lot of care in manufacture.

As to being a little too 'plain' for a presentation piece this is a more common practice than not. Sometimes a fancy knife was made for a fancy scabbard when given to a high ranking official or officer especially with the other types of kothimoras. In the case of 'box' kothimoras the fanciest handle I've ever seen was ivory. The others being horn with a brass or silver bolster.

The karda and chakmak are in the same situation. It is very common to find these with the cross hatching or some design on the chakmak while paired with a plain handled karda and neither comes close to matching the knife itself! Even some of my finest kothimoras have fairly crude small knives that go with a beautiful horn handled knife.

As to 'naming' this is when a piece is engraved on the blade, spine or a separate area on the scabbard with the recipients name. This is always of huge value since a provenance can be traced of that particular khukuri.

Hope this helps.



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JP
 
Geez, I hate disagreeing with Uncle Bill, but I think this a well made Nepalese khukuri. Besides the overall shape the silver bolster indicates a lot of care in manufacture.

As to being a little too 'plain' for a presentation piece this is a more common practice than not. Sometimes a fancy knife was made for a fancy scabbard when given to a high ranking official or officer especially with the other types of kothimoras. In the case of 'box' kothimoras the fanciest handle I've ever seen was ivory. The others being horn with a brass or silver bolster.

The karda and chakmak are in the same situation. It is very common to find these with the cross hatching or some design on the chakmak while paired with a plain handled karda and neither comes close to matching the knife itself! Even some of my finest kothimoras have fairly crude small knives that go with a beautiful horn handled knife.

As to 'naming' this is when a piece is engraved on the blade, spine or a separate area on the scabbard with the recipients name. This is always of huge value since a provenance can be traced of that particular khukuri.

Hope this helps.



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JP
 
I freely admit that I'm no expert. The cho and steel bolster make me think India but I have been wrong more times in my life that I care to remember so John or anybody else is most welcome to disagree with any opinion I might put forth -- except to dealing personally with kamis!!!!!!!!

The scabbard appears to be very nicely done.

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Blessings from the computer shack in Reno.

Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ
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The dimensions if it helps:

dimensions.jpg


Would this be considered a large or a small khukuri (or somewhere in between)?

As an aside, the best looking khukuri on the HI website (in my opinion of course) is the Gelbu Special which is tempting me a tad. Who said it was addictive... Which size is pictured though, 18 inch or 21 inch?

Andy
 
'Ya know this Khukuri bears alot resemblance to the GH modern Afghan Khukuri???
<a href=http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1583598&a=12050227&p=46210131>See my photo, afghan at PhotoPoint</a>
 
366 mm? It's kind of funny that the English don't even use the English system of measurement.
 
If we want to be exact it takes too long to work out how many 16ths something is so we just use mm. If we're not being exact we use inches and feet as they're easier to visualise.

We also usually use metres rather than yards and miles rather than kilometres although I doubt anyone can tell you how many inches there are to the metre or how many metres there are to the mile...

I blame Napoleon myself.

Andy
 
:
Andy wrote thusly:
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">We also usually use metres rather than yards and miles rather than kilometres although I doubt anyone can tell you how many inches there are to the metre or how many metres there are to the mile...</font>
Click to expand...

There are 39.37 inches to the metre and there are 1,609 metres to the mile.
Thanks to my litle engineering conversion booklet.
biggrin.gif



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&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;---Yvsa-G@WebTV.net----&gt;®

"VEGETARIAN".............
Indin word for lousy hunter.
 
What's more annoying is that when I read out your reply to my colleague he knew how many metres there were to the mile before I said it.

So I'll shut up while I'm behind!

He is now telling me that there are 1760 yards exactly to the mile, which is 8 furlongs at 220yards apiece, but we don't know what the next division down is... What an educational day! Oh, he says it's because he's a farmer's son, whereas I'm just an urbanite...

Andy
 
:
That was cute Matt.
Should have seen it coming, but in today's world one never knows ya now.
biggrin.gif



------------------
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;---Yvsa-G@WebTV.net----&gt;®

"VEGETARIAN".............
Indin word for lousy hunter.
 
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