Oceanic Club Question: Real Deal or Tourist Appeal?

Indianajones · 29th June 2011, 09:24 AM

Hello, this is a club from Malaita, the Solomon islands. To my (humble) opinion it is indeed -as you suspected- from the beginning of the 20th cent. as the engraving is quite finely done. The inset shells are also a quite nice feature. May certainly be used in ceremonies.
Though, to be clear, it is not the real good old (19th cent) thing as those are mostly made of black ebony and have an instant reckognizable 'moon'-shaped finial of the handle (in acute angle) and a more pronounced diamondshape (sharper corners, divided surface in four areas by a crossridge etc). Havent got a picture of those in my documents to show unfort.
Hope this helped you a bit.

29th June 2011, 09:24 AM	#5
Indianajones Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 180	Hello, this is a club from Malaita, the Solomon islands. To my (humble) opinion it is indeed -as you suspected- from the beginning of the 20th cent. as the engraving is quite finely done. The inset shells are also a quite nice feature. May certainly be used in ceremonies. Though, to be clear, it is not the real good old (19th cent) thing as those are mostly made of black ebony and have an instant reckognizable 'moon'-shaped finial of the handle (in acute angle) and a more pronounced diamondshape (sharper corners, divided surface in four areas by a crossridge etc). Havent got a picture of those in my documents to show unfort. Hope this helped you a bit.