A friend at work was showing me this dagger. He bought it at an estate sale in easter Canada two years ago, so provinance is unknown. It's beautifully balanced, reasonably sharp, and rather lovely in its own way. As you can see from the pictures, there's extensive tooling on the sheath and the knife, though the style does not quite match from one to another. It makes me wonder if the sheath isn't much older.

Based on the construction, I'd venture that it was made from industrial scrap in an underdeveloped nation, where materials are expensive and labor cheap. Personally I think it was made in central Asia, one of the Stans or the Himalayas, but this is only a guess.

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Looks African to me. Something about the decoration and hilt....

I couldn't venture a guess as to its origin, but to me it looks like it's based on something from classic sci-fi. Like, really classic. Flash Gordon or The Forbidden Planet or something. What an unusual looking hilt...

Perhaps the coat of arms might reveal more, unless it's mere decoration. Have you tried to look that up in any catalogues of heraldry?

Nice example. It's from the northern Sahara, specifically the Maghreb. I have a friend who travels regularly to Morocco and the desert areas and who brings back similar daggers.

Now that I think about it, the intricate geometric patterns would be appropriate in largely Islamic countries, would it not?

I'd have said Western Africa - I've seen a lot of similar stuff, especially the hilt & parts, made nowadays by smiths in various countries there.

check these pics :

http://couteliers.free.fr/forumread.php?ID=30823&page=1

Made by local smiths in cameroon (under their supervision, at least), working with scrap metal.

Fab

The similarities between Gavins dagger and the pics Fabrice posted are pretty striking. There definitely seems to be a certain "flavor" to the decorational motif. Not at all unattractive (in fact I really like the dagger) but a definite style based on some regional preference or what have you.

I'm pretty convinced that Fabrice is right. That's a very interesting sword, and I like the set together. I'd be curious as to the actual handling of the thing. Is it big weight, or a real fighting piece?

AFAIK it is crap steel :)

Made by the son of an user of the French forum to which I linked. Not really meant to be used nor effective.