Beautiful & unusual gunong
 

Yesterday ended the auction of this very nice and unusual gunong by ebay. I was outbid because the end of auction was in the night, hopefully a member of the forum is the lucky winner. :) I never have seen before a early gunong blade with silver inlay which I have seen by kris blades before.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GREAT-MALAYS...#ht_620wt_1153

Hello Detlef, I was also short on the bidding on this one. I do not know if it was you or the other bidder that took me out of the running for this gunong, but like you I hope that someone here on the forum was the lucky winner. If I did not have car repairs that have to be taken care of I would have been able to bid higher on this and then would hopefully have been able to say that it was mine, but sadly that is not the case. Oh well, you cannot win them all.:(

Best, Robert

I was going to go of this too but wasn't able to get back to it in time. All mounts seem to be in silver. Uncommon to see these with inlay.

Hello Jose, This is the only gunong that I have seen so far with this style of inlay on the blade, especially the "star"? inlays. I have only seen yhose on Kris and other larger blades. To be honest, when the bidding ended and Detlef posted this I thought that it might have been you or Steve that won this. Hopefully someone here on the forum has won this quite unique item and will share photos of it all polished and shining as it was intended to. Your talents at restoring inlays would definitely come in handy to whoever it was that won this.:D

Best,
Robert

Lovely Gunong, can't believe I didn't see it. Would the silver panel on the hilt be there to hide a crack?

Hello Russel, I have seen a few with this style of panel on the hilts before but never any evidence of splitting where the panel was mounted. I would think that these are a purely decorative feature as adding more nails in this manor (in a straight line in an already weakened area) would not be of much help in trying to stabilize the wooden hilt, but I could be wrong. :shrug:

Best,
Robert

I agree Robert, a nail could easily worsen an existing crack or other problem. Although I'm sure there would be wood-trickery ways of using a nail/pin (if a hole is provided) to advantage - I'm thinking of the holes drilled into plastics and metals to end-stop cracks.

The decorative reason is perhaps more likely though, I agree.

Agree, sadly not! :D There are also other bidders and my money is limited also! :mad:

Regards,
Detlef

Yes, I also think that the mounts are from silver! And yes, the blade inlays are very uncommon by gunongs of this age.

Regards,
Detlef

Don't think that the reason is to hide a crack in the wooden hilt. Agree here with Robert.

Regards,
Detlef