What is it?
 

I have a sword that belongs to a family friend. Her late husband got it from his uncle who traveled to China a lot, and he passed away in 1937. So we know the swords have to be older than that.

I thought it looked like it was Damascus steel from Turkey or Russia, but I've had a few people who are into swords/knifes say it was a klewang from Celebes or Sumatra. It was made with a folded forging process which is related to, but not the same as Damascus.


Any help would be appreciated.

They are right that it is a type of klewang (the name escapes me now) from Indonesia and it is laminated. What most call damascus steel is pattern folded.

Hello Brian,

first of all welcome to our forum. What you have is trash but I am so friendly to take it from your hands that you don't need to depollute it! :D
But seriously, you have there a very rare sword called pade, look here: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10346
I think that your one is also from Ceram but this swords are found in parts of Sulawesi as well. It is a very nice one and when you ever get tired of it I would be happy to take it! ;)

Regards,

Detlef

Hi Brian, welcome to the forum. I am one of the folks who responded to your inquiry on SFI. There is a great deal of knowledge on weapons from this area here on the forum that goes far beyond mine so maybe you will find a more specific answer here.

Thanks for the info guys. I was having a hard time learning anything about it. Is there anything else you can tell me about it? History, use, etc...

Now that I know what it is called I found an almost identical sword for the first time.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=Pade

Hello Brian,

These swords seem to come from an area including East Sulawesi up to the Moluccas. Apparently there was not a lot of smithing done on the many smaller islands (no iron sources) and blades have apparently been traded. Since these cultures were not rich, most of these swords would have been multi-purpose tools: weapons, status symbols, and utility machetes.

The higher status pade seem to be those with the highly flared blade tips (3-4 inches broad); and some of these also have huge hand guards (usually crafted from horn and attached with rattan) covering the whole grip area.

Well-preserved examples usually have a triangular pommel end piece (attached with a single nut and rattan binding). If any, hair is bound to the hilt as a larger tuft (in the apparently genuine examples). In your example, the small tufts of hair are attached by light-colored wooden plugs in holes drilled into the wood; this is typical for the Moro kampilan as well as for the swords from the Timor group of islands (South of the pade area). My best guess is that this is a later addition not done in the original culture: maybe the sword traveled to other islands, maybe an overzealous dealer upgraded it a long time ago.

I'm adding a few more pics of pade (from Arjan, Artzi, and Martin). Note that the last one shows another pommel variant; pade from the Kei islands seem to have more bent pommels ending parallel to the blade:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...3&postcount=26

Regards,
Kai

Here some more for comparison. Two from my collection, three from Michael, one from Maurice and one from Royston.

Regards,

Detlef