Small Knife For ID
 

Here is a small knife that I've had for a year or two that I've never been able to identify.The hilt is horn and the V shaped blade is still sharp enough to shave with. :eek: Any help in identifying where this knife is from and its possible age would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for any and all help on this. Robert

Total length is 8-1/2"
Blade length is 5-3/4"
Blade at widest is 5/8"
Blade at thickest is 7/32"

Could it be for betel nut?

ALL I CAN DO IS OFFER CONJECTURE ON THIS ONE. I WOULD SUSPECT A INDONESIAN OR MALAYSIAN ORIGIN. THE BLADE DOES HAVE A FORM SIMULAR TO THE PHILIPPINE TALIBION BUT DUE TO ITS SIZE AND AS IT IS V SHAPED BLADE AND NOT FLAT ON ONE SIDE THAT CAUSES ME TO ELIMINATE IT AS OF PHILIPPINE ORIGINS. THE HANDLE DOSEN'T LOOK PHILIPPINE TO ME EITHER. DUE TO ITS SIZE BLADE SHAPE AND SHARPNESS IT IS PROBABLY A SMALL KNIFE USED FOR VARIOUS CHORES. CARVEING ,GROOMING AND PERHAPS EVEN TO CUT UP FOOD OR BEETLE NUT COMES TO MIND, SOMETIMES REFERED TO IN THE WEST AS A UTILITY KNIFE.
OFTEN SUCH A KNIFE WILL HAVE BEEN SHARPENED FREQUENTLY AND AS THE STEEL USED IS OFTEN SOFTER TO TAKE A SHARPER EDGE EASILY IT SHOULD SHOW SOME WEAR TO THE BLADE. THE HANDLE SHOULD ALSO SHOW QUITE A NICE POLISH OR WEAR AS THIS TYPE OF KNIFE WOULD HAVE ALWAYS BEEN CARRIED AND USED OFTEN. GOOD LUCK ON PINNING IT DOWN FURTHER

Jose and Vandoo,
Thank you both for your help in trying to identify this knife and its use. One thing I would like to say though is that the blade on this is just the opposite of soft. In fact the entire blade is made of extremely hard steel. The horn hilt does show a high polish and wear from being handled quite often. If you hold this like you would a straight razor with your thumb placed in the curved part of the blade (lower edge right in front of the grip) you can actually shave with it. Could it have possibly been used for this or maybe for cutting hair? :confused: Thank you both again.

Robert

I think it is a Rawit, Sumatra, Batak. According to Van Zonneveld your knife is answering the description. It is found in many blade shapes and also the hilt has many variations.

Could be a rawit here is a similar small knife and the other photo has a larger version of a rawit with the tiger stripe wood hilt left side third from the top.

Lew

Here is a picture of a similar knife and a link to an archived discussion.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...Phil/Phil1.jpg

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002254.html

A rawit is a very good guess of Henk.
The only thing confusing is that a resembling knife was posted here 2 years ago but in a non-rawit scabbard.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=3685

Michael

Again let me thank you all for your help identifying this knife. The last example in the link posted by Michael is by far the closest in blade and hilt shape to the one that I posted. The only real difference that I can see between the last example and mine is that it as well as the other one shown by Nagawarrior both have a ferrel or other metal adornments on the hilt where my example has none.


Robert

Rob

Here is another form of rawit.

Lew