Question of Spear origins

[Gavin Nugent]

Well I have had about 30 spears and pole arms arrive on Friday and I've been enjoying going over each one in detail and this spear is very interesting.

It is long and it is very thin but strong and flexible though I'm sure I could snap it over my knee with ease today but it would have served as a very efficient weapon in its day when stronger and more supple.

The head, collar and butt cap are all iron with a heavy but perfectly stable age patina and the head is lethal with great piercing ability by design and the edges are so fine they would have been like razors in the day.
The shaft is bamboo which has been fully wrapped with a fine fibrous material and then lacquered thickly to smooth the surface which also shows a painted surface, this alone can point to India for many but...I'll come to that in a second.
The fine head has the iron collar which is actually four pieces stacked atop each other and offers great support for the tang in such fine thin bamboo.

An interesting lance was offered to me on Saturday at the Brisbane arms fair, the size of a typical Sumatran lance on a thin light shaft, it had a head so very similar in design but created slightly different. The most interesting aspect I found was the brass collar it was sitting it, it carried designs that were clearly Thai to my eye....keeping this in mind, perhaps Thailand? It is after all, although in no way ruling out India, so very different from the heavy iron heads seen on the South Indian lances shown above...this thing is in the feather weight division by comparison.

Any thoughts more than welcome.

Gav