My First Barung!

[Rafngard]

Hello All,

I just received my first barung (an epray purchase), and am super excited!
The seller says this is from the Moro insurgency period, but it came from epray, so who knows? Hopefully I haven't been epreyed upon.

I've read through quite a few barung posts in the archives, and to be honest I'm not quite sure where to start on trying to identify when and here this is from. So I hoped to get some opinions from here.

It looks like it's missing some pitch on one side, and the handle was clearly damaged at some point, and fixed on one side. The blade is nice and heavy. Over all everything is nice and tight. The ferrule is nice and long and looks like it could be silver. I can almost see a lamination pattern on the blade. I'm hoping to do the silver test and etch the blade in the near future (I have a couple of Kris to do the same to as well, so I have some work ahead of me!).

The scabbard also has some damage, particularly to the bottom, and someone carved some sort of initials on the back (V.N.B.E.L. and I have no idea what that might mean). The brass (I think) bands look like a latter addition. I can kind of see wider bands where something like a rattan wrap would have originally been; the polish on the wood looks different there, as can be seen in some of the pics).

I'd be glad any to hear any opinions anyone may have on this.

Thanks, in advance,
Leif