Philippine Bolo

[tanaruz]

Originally Posted by Battara

Oh no offense taken. The Nazi's were insanely brutal occupiers to the Russians as well, unfortunately.

Hi friends.

additional info on the kaolu bolo:

1) blade: flat on one side, then convex on the other side with strong beveled edge (chisel grind,right?)

2) pics of the RED characters and other characters on the scabbard and on the blade itself.

Thanks and be safe everyone.

Yves

[Ren Ren]

Thanks for these pics! What I see, in my opinion, was written by three different people.
Red characters 章書記 are read in Japanese Akira shoki - a secretary / clerk named Akira, in Chinese Zhang shuji with the same meaning. Combined with the inscription "service records bag" is a bit like humor?
The character on the blade 昋 is read in Chinese Gui and means the surname (also possible 吞 surname Tun), in the Japanese dictionary I did not find these characters.
The characters on the handle are difficult to read, I will deal with them later.

[Ian]

I don't recall seeing a Kaolu blade with a chisel grind before. Then again, my experience with Kaolu blades is pretty limited.

Maybe it's Visayan. A very interesting bolo in many respects! Maybe some of our Filipino experts have some other ideas.

Ian.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Ian

I don't recall seeing a Kaolu blade with a chisel grind before. Then again, my experience with Kaolu blades is pretty limited.

Maybe it's Visayan. A very interesting bolo in many respects! Maybe some of our Filipino experts have some other ideas.

Hi Ian,

Have had similar thoughts and I agree, it could very well a Visayan bolo, this handle style is common there as well.

Regards,
Detlef