Three new from Luzon

[Rafngard]

I actually think that if I could replace the eye it wouldn't be too bad.

[Ian]

Leif:

Those are three nice knives you have shown with well tooled leather sheaths.

I think the longest one with the broken tip is the oldest. This could well be revolutionary war period and may have seen some action in fighting with the Spanish and later U.S. occupiers. I don't see anything particularly Batangas to it, and the hilt is reminiscent of those seen from the Laguna de Pays area of Metro Manila (west central Luzon).

The Apalit bolo is also fairly old, as Detlef has noted--perhaps early 20th C. Apalit is a town in the Province of Pampanga which is close to the former Clark Air Force Base that the U.S. continued to use until Mt. Pinatubo erupted and covered it in ash. We have discussed bolos from Apalit before and you can find those discussions by using the Search Function and entering Apalit. It is interesting that your bolo is marked APALIT over MA. I have a very similarly marked bolo but it has APALIT over EB (http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18769). These could be maker's initials.

The small dagger is also interesting. It is the youngest of the three IMO, and probably dates from the 1950s or a little later. The horses head is a popular Filipino motif, but not commonly seen on knives from Central Luzon. The triangular shaped blade, with bevel on one side, might suggest a possible Visayan origin (Cebu?). However, I am more inclined to ascribe this knife to an Ilocano craftsman. The Ilocano produce knives with similar blades to this one, and they occasionally use a horse's head on the hilt. The style of the brass cross guard and ferrule is also consistent with Ilocano work.

Thanks again for showing these interesting examples.

Ian.

[Rafngard]

Apologies for Necro-ing an old thread, but I was digging through other old threads and found that one of these three (the one with the broken tip) had been discussed 11 or so years before it came into my hands!

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=452

We really are just caretakers of these blades; we do not own them, rather we have the privilege of holding onto them for a time.

Have fun, and stay humble,
Leif

[xasterix]

Originally Posted by Rafngard

Apologies for Necro-ing an old thread, but I was digging through other old threads and found that one of these three (the one with the broken tip) had been discussed 11 or so years before it came into my hands!

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=452

We really are just caretakers of these blades; we do not own them, rather we have the privilege of holding onto them for a time.

Have fun, and stay humble,
Leif

Halloo Leif,

It might interest you that the longest one in that triad may either be from Laguna OR Rizal. Pre-1900, Laguna and Rizal had fuzzy borders, hence the "OR" disclaimer.

Also, my Spanish collector-friends believe that particular hilt form is indicative of mid-1800s manufacture. I got a similarly-hilted itak with a different blade profile from a Spanish source.