Ivory Silver Swassa Barong

[hideyoshi]

Originally Posted by Battara

I still think that sometimes the cost of the hilt material was so great that the blade did not need to be laminated and thus cheaper to forge in some cases. I do consider however some of the wonderful and thoughtful arguments that many of you have forwarded - some very good points.

For consideration is a sultan's barong with a hilt of gold (most likely swassa), silver, and carved ivory. The inlay in the blade is silver. It appears to be etched (vastly darker material around the silver) and no lamination. This piece comes from the book The Gods of War from the New York Metropolitan Museum.

Battara, I could be wrong, but I had seen a few examples of this type of barong blades but none of them were mono. I think the blade on your example was not etched.
Here are my two barongs.

[Battara]

Originally Posted by hideyoshi

Battara, I could be wrong, but I had seen a few examples of this type of barong blades but none of them were mono. I think the blade on your example was not etched.
Here are my two barongs.

HI Hideyoshi. I believe that the example is etched due to the darkness of the steel. But that is another issue.

You have some really nice barong blades there with nice lamination (would love to see the whole barongs if you don't mind posting them).

Here is a barong that I made the pommel and replaced 75% of the missing brass inlay. Very similar to yours, except after I polished and re-etched the blade, there were no laminations in the blade (the piece belonged to a former member here Ian). Below are the pictures. (I also made the scabbard):

[hideyoshi]

Here's another example from VVV's collection, you can almost see the lamination on the blade. Only four of this type of blades i have seen so far, 3 are highly laminated, the one from metropolitan museum is by far the best. Old moro blades tend to fade laminition due to age/time, re-etching the blade will place the laminations back.