Curious massive knife or machete

[Ian]

Originally Posted by francantolin

Hello Ian,

Thank's a lot for your message,
Do you think the blade can come from a cut down klewang ?
Or something more european ?
It looks like a shortened pioneer sword-cutlass .
Small original or shortened blade...

Hi fran,

Best I can tell, the blade seems to be monosteel, which might suggest a European blade, but there are plenty of 20th C examples of local blades made in Asia from monosteel also. In one picture you show a red line around the the top of the blade, where there is a narrow, flat section of blade adjacent to the guard that looks like the bottom of a traditional European ricasso.

I think it is a much modified blade recovered from another weapon. In this regard, Japanese soldiers were proficient at repurposing captured blades during WWII. American GIs did the same but to a lesser degree.