E Asian

[tom hyle]

Off to Conogre for posting: A group shot of various Philipino and Japanese knives and swords; Left to right: a vegetable cleaver that may be Chinese; full length tang and bolster/ferule made of a rolled up triangle or brass sheet: A Japanese eel(?) knife; heavy, chisel-edged scarf welded blade: Japanese octopus (?) knife; a lighter chisel-edged scarf welded knife: some sort of "nata" ie bill-type item? The angled tip is entirely unsharp; what is its purpose? Note the shaft which is a continuation of the wedge shaped tang, as with the eel knife; the octopus knife has a blade "shouldered" down to tang in more "ordinary" manner. This is a heavy scarfwelded chisel edged blade with a hollowed back side. Forged to shape: Big nice plain talibon/garab; I think 19th w/thumbrest and scarfwelded blade: Newer talibon, beside its own dress; note dhalike tang on this one; the bigger one (and this one is like a 12" blade) likely has a robust wedge tang; the visible top of it is very wide: Another 20th c talibon/talibesque; rather matulislike w/a somewhat European style ricassoe. Sheath has a long nose to catch the belt: Talibesque with wide cutting tip; a nice little knife, and my feeling is quite old. Seems to have lost a rattan wrap at the handle tip, and pommel seems to have been chewed on by a puppy(?).
Another shot of the backs of some of the same pieces, plus a mak with a nice heavy blade.
Two photos showing a couple of mid 20th Java goloks (one seems to be marked "1940" in inlaid brass) and another sword; Moro? Bathead sword? I think it has batear and batfang. A light wipe on etch shows a fairly clear temper line that interestingly does not include the very tip. A sketch of it is included as well.