Thai or Burmese polearm
 

Hello,

Just picked this up at auction. A Thai or Burmese polearm.

Total length, 1.88m, roughly split 50/50 between blade and pole. I don't have it in hand yet so can't say anything about the quality of the blade.

The whole thing looks heavy duty to me though :shrug:

Any thoughts or comments in this piece?

Thanks!
Emanuel

Nice! Need to see better photos, though. :o

The rings remind me more of Vietnamese styles, but still this could very well be Thai or Burmese.

That's the best I can do until I pick it up Andrew. Hopefully tomorrow.

Wondering if this would qualify as a Thai ngaw.

Charles, the flimsy guard also recalled Vietnamese pieces to my mind.

Certainly French Indo Chinese, that's more certain that Thai specific and why I didn't push the bid...the blade profile and the presence of the fuller points more to Chinese made and influenced.

Congratulations Emanuel. What a nice long bladed polearm! I would lean more towards Laotian....Laos being between Thailand and Vietnam there is a blend of cultures including an heavy Chinese influence.

Also a friend reminded me the one of the cross pieces Leaf pedal guard is missing and they would point up the other direction towards the tip.

Here is a example of what I'm describing:

Personally I can not see Laos in either of those pictured.

There are certain elements with blade types, mounting of the blade, collars and other decorative factors in all pictures presented that in my opinion push this more towards the coast than towards Laos...I think you were right in your unedited post Nathaniel.

By design, especially the collar types behind the guard, it is seen on Guom and Annam great sabres...also the pin through the tang method is also a mostly Chinese influenced thing.

Despite a long history of Chinese forces in Laos especially in the 18th century and that some of the higher end silver Laos swords have a similar shaped collar, the methods of blade securing/ blade mounting seem to have remained pure resin set with supporting collars than pinned tangs in Chinese style.

There are visual references available that also show these ring supported collars as being from Annam more specifically.

Gavin

Reminds me of a nagamaki.