Chinese (?) knife

[David]

I ran across this little utility knife in an antique mall and the price seemed right so i bought it. 9" overall in the sheath, blade alone just under 4", 7 1/2" with the hilt.
The hilt grips could be ivory or some kind of horn. It gets translucent near the ferrule so it doesn't look like bone to me. I don't know what the black material is nor the "white" metal, but there does seem to be some copper involved.
The sheath seems to be some kind of low grade silver or maybe just nickel silver with a band of ray skin in the middle.
Any ideas as to place, date, usage would be welcome.

[kronckew]

looks tibetan.

[Tim Simmons]

Mongolia? I like the scabbard.

[Bill M]

Never seen one like it, but I would agree with Wayne. Tibetan side of the Chinese border.

[josh stout]

I have one that is very similar that a friend collected from the North West of China in a region of the Tibetan plateau that is outside the former border of Tibet. While it is inside China itself, it is an area that strangely has fewer Han and recent Han Chinese influence than Tibet itself. I am seeing more and more pieces coming out of far eastern Tibet/far western China, so I suspect that modernization and development are now reaching the area. In the early to late nineties when I had friends traveling in the region, men still commonly carried swords at their sides.
Josh

[Jim McDougall]

Tibetan puuko.

[David]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Tibetan puuko.

I didn't know those irrassible vikings made it that far east.

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by David

I didn't know those irrassible vikings made it that far east.

vikings didnt have a puukko, the puukko came from the far east and siberia ,,


the knife in the pick ,, looks to be baoan ... a moslem mongolian ethnic group from china..

language and culture is mixed between uzbek and mongols.. and some others

[Emanuel]

It's a nice little knife. Ausjulius, do you mean the Uygur?

Emanuel

[David]

Originally Posted by ausjulius

vikings didnt have a puukko, the puukko came from the far east and siberia ,,


the knife in the pick ,, looks to be baoan ... a moslem mongolian ethnic group from china..

language and culture is mixed between uzbek and mongols.. and some others

The Puuko as i understand it is the signature knife of Northern Europe, specifically Finland. That being the cased i guess my reference was a bit of a stretch since the Vikings, i believe, were a little to the west....but the far east? That seems a little off to me.

Well, at least according to Wiki the word is from the Finnish language, but can also apply to a Norwegian knife as well so perhaps my Viking reference isn't too far a field.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/puukko

[David]

Well, i found this on an internet site labeled 19thC Tibetan utility knife. I bit fancier, but with many of the same elements. They could be wrong as well, but it seems to reinforce a Tibetan origin.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by ausjulius

vikings didnt have a puukko, the puukko came from the far east and siberia ,,


the knife in the pick ,, looks to be baoan ... a moslem mongolian ethnic group from china..

language and culture is mixed between uzbek and mongols.. and some others

Obviously I made the puuko comment in jest, mostly because the blade reminded me of them and recent discussions on them.
What is interesting in the motif on the grip is the familiar circled dot, which as has been discussed many times, always recalls these on weapons and other items such as lohar and bushkazi whips from Afghanistan and adjacent regions (i.e.Uzbekistan).
Ausjulius, could you please say more on these Baoan people. It seems I once read about this Muslim people who were situated in the western frontier regions of China.

Best regards,
Jim

[David]

Hi Jim. Just for the record, i did, of course, realize that your original statement was in jest.
I was responding more to Ausjulius' statement that the puukko comes from the far east. That one still confuses me.