Any Clue What This Is? Age? Origin?

[BryanJ]

I couldn’t pass this up in an antique shop…any quess what the heck it is?

[Madmarco]

Definitely appears to be homemade, Bryan, perhaps a variation of the RPK's/Russian Prison Knives?
Pretty cool ole' dagger, whatever it actually is!

[gordonjohn]

i tend to agree with Mark, home made ? looks like some kind of marking by the bolster or is that pitting? cool knife

[BryanJ]

I’ve looked all over to see if maker put his initials on it, I can’t see any. Lots of pitting. I like the shape of the blade, looks like maker had a dagger in mind.

[doglegg]

Very cool old knife. Thanks for sharing.

[BryanJ]

I posted the same info on the U.S. Militaria Forum, hoping that one of those guys might have an idea of its origin. A couple of folks thought it could have been a WWII bring-back from North Africa or from one of the Pacific Islands. They also thought that maybe the blade was made from a leaf spring. As primitive as it looks, that knife is well made, the blade is heavy duty, the tang goes through the handle, all the way to the pommel, and there is no play at all between the blade and handle. The only mark of any sort is on the pommel. Not sure of the significance of the symbol.

[Ridgegrass]

I get an impression it has Islamic origins, ?? J.O'.

[Madmarco]

I'm getting the same vibe, O', Persian to be more specific!

[GSPTOPDOG]

I posted the same info on the U.S. Militaria Forum, hoping that one of those guys might have an idea of its origin. A couple of folks thought it could have been a WWII bring-back from North Africa or from one of the Pacific Islands.

It looks like it could have been made in Asia to me... just a guess, not exactly sure, I doesn't look like some of the Filipino blades I have but more like the ones from Thailand, Malaysia....