Dha-hmyaung

[Robert]

Something completely different than what I normally collect, I found this on epray the other day right as the auction was ending. I placed a very modest bid on bid at the last minute and to my surprise ended up winning. The hilt unfortunately missing so I will have to find a piece of suitable material to make a replacement from. After searching the net and here I have seen quite a few of these and all of the ones with silver fittings like this have had their hilts made from ivory. My main question on this is, has anyone ever seen an example of one of these knife/daggers with silver fittings that has had a hilt made from any material other than ivory? On plainer examples I have seen both horn and bone hilts and even a few very plain examples with wooden hilts. These are the auction photos and I will be posting 9I hope) better ones after it arrives. Any comments on hilt materials, possible age or general comments on this piece would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Robert