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Old 18th April 2005, 01:55 AM   #12
Andrew
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Great knives, Nosmo, thanks for sharing.

Tom, I don't disagree that most small dha are probably not "miniatures" in the same sense as the Filipino examples on this thread. However, most of the very small dha are probably a form of "prayer knife", particularly those from Thailand, where I understand it is common to have them blessed at Buddhist temples (Dan, are you out there to comment on this?). Some of those are quite small, and intended to be carried on or about the person. Nosmo's small knife may be of that type.

The two I posted are, I believe, truly miniatures. I showed them to Ian last year at Timonium, and we both speculated they were either a sort of "salesman" sample similar to the miniature safes carried by salesmen in the 19th and early 20th century, or perhaps (given the high level of workmanship), demonstration of the maker's skill.
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