Not sure about this Philippine barong ...

[twdroppoint2]

Hello ! First I'd like to apologize for having only the one picture ... I saw this item at an estate sale and haven't purchased it (yet), and they allowed me to take a picture but I didn't want to push my luck and take all manner of pictures of it.

Like I said, I saw this at an estate sale ... my first thought is that it was a barong, perhaps WW2. The estate sale company couldn't give me any insight into the original owner of the house really, they couldn't tell me if he was a WW2 vet for example, however the items they were selling were all from the 20's to the 70's really, so I suppose he could have been a WW2 vet. Anyways, to the knife:

The blade is about 16", very heavy and thick, no markings except for the name "Martin" scratched into it. Very sharp on the blade edge. The hilt is *maybe* some type of wood ? The collar on the shank is a metal ... the knife is very stable in the hilt, no play whatsoever.

The sheath is mostly wood, very thin, with metal.

The hilt is so simple and non decorative ... I was wondering what region this might come from, as well as the possible dating ? I doubt it's a "souvenir" type of weapon, but could it be ? Most of the barong's I'm looking up have much more elaborate hilts and such, this one is so non-descript.

Any help in properly identifying the era/region of this machete would be much appreciated. I don't want to purchase it if it's more of a souvenir type item or something. Thanks ! Hopefully I'll hear back before tomorrow my time, as the sale ends tomorrow (Apr 23rd). Thanks again