Rare Pilipino Swords....
 

...just came off ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...524280544&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...524281233&rd=1

seems like the seller put up the wrong date. older pieces perhaps?

btw, congrats to the winners...

Edit : with the sellers kind permission I am posting the pictures of the talibon/garab and the Mandaya bolo for future reference .

The top one is a talibon, of the type now starting to be referred to as garab. It looks like a 19th c. one, AFAIK. It's just like the pictures in the books, and rather large, and this style is beginning to generate quite a lot of interest. The other of course, appears to be a Mandaya sword. It appears to have been etched to show an inlaid edge toward the tip. Also, note its handle is similar to those on some talibons (plamenkos?) we recently discussed. I was watching these; all I could afford to do :p

so that's a garab! i've been calling it talibon. yeah, battara thinks it's much older that what the seller stated. would anyone else care to comment about this sword?

the mandaya sword looks to be in great condition. i believe this type of sword was being discussed on the kampilan thread. funny how the prices of these swords jacks up whenever it's discussed. comments?

Rsword and I believe the Mandaya sword to be 1930s, though for me the scabbard maybe a little later. Here is a link to an old discussion on the matter:

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000548.html

Yeah, we suck like that. Visayan swords were about to get popular, anyway (near to Moro in geography, design, and quality, as the Moro ones get pricier; same for Lumad), but we hastened this, I do not doubt, and not only that, but it was gonna be the binagons and tenegres with the Moro-like long cone ferules, not talibons, IMHO, but now this "book style" talibon is through the roof; watched one go for $500 at auction the other day! Keep in mind it was hard to get $50 for one less than 5 years ago. Good thing I do already own a very closely related style, but it doesn't have the "book pommel", and you know things have to look like the book(etc.) picture; 1/2 again the price and double the salabilty right there :rolleyes:

Garab
 

The rattan bindings on this sword look pretty bright compared to this example Artzi sold me , he dated it to the late 19c.

This example http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...6524280544&rd=1 could of course been re-wrapped around or during WWII to refurbish it . The carving is pretty crisp also which might point to a newer example .

I would not be too sure of "newness". Here is a picture of the hilt of my talibon and it has an old inscription on the scabbard of "Tagbilaran 1901" where the forces on Bohol surrendered to the Americans (many were from Cebu). Notice the lighter color of the rattan bindings and the crispness of the carving. Unfortunately, part of the hilt is damaged.

Spunjer:

Both the garab and the Mandayan bolo appear to be in very good condition and perhaps not all that old. I agree with Rick that the garab, in particular, looks remarkably pristine.

From their appearances, both of them could have been made in the mid- to late-20th C. but could also be earlier examples that were acquired in excellent (unused) condition and maintained well by a previous owner.

I was a participant in bidding on the Mandaya bolo, but another forumite beat me on that one. Hopefully we will see some more pictures. Oh well, win some - lose some -- the collector's motto.

Ian.

'Invalid link'
 

When I click on the fgirst li9nks in this thread I get 'Invalid link'; is there any way around this?

Hi Montino:

Those links seem to be working okay for me. Maybe if you copy and paste them into the command line of your browser they may work better. eBay addresses can be picky sometimes.

Ian.

well, here's a visayan knife i'm planning on selling in the near future (i'm visayan and i own the knife). you folks have first dibs... :D :D :D

on a more serious note;

ian, you said:
i'm kinda leaning on your former comment since i lost :D but wouldn't it be something if it was the latter? when i was back in the in the philippines, i was hoping to find even a facsimile of these visayan swords. well, as you can see, no luck...

I gonna agree with Battara and vote that at least the Garab is an early 20th century model (circa insurrection period). I have always been told that this was the early style garab due to carving style (most notably a Pulanesque looking cross), a carving style that largely dissappears in later dates. I have plenty of old swords with pristine looks. Years in a pristine storage conditions and decent maintenance can go a long way in preserving looks. Anyways, this early style for a long time has been very difficult to find (took me 4 years to find mine), finding good examples now is only made worse now with the higher prices.

well, if this is indeed an older style, this one is actually a "bargain" compared to similar ones i've been seeing on ebay. as for the mandaya sword, it looks like the price is set at $300.00+...

So Spunjer, how old is your Visayan knife? How expensive is it? :D

Forget It Jose
 

It's MINE !!!!
$ 300.00 cash Spunjer !
Beat that ! :D :D :D

NUTS! :mad:

LOL
 

Don't Worry Battara, I got another one for you... this one even has some battle scars on the blade. :D

Hey Spunger, funny you posted that butter knife. It reminded me of my butter knife I use for practice. :D

Ian, I'll post some pics of the Mandaya bolo when I get it and also pics of another example.

Here is another example of an older garab for comparison to the one above. The seller for the swords said these came from a lady's husban who brought them back during WWII. I would probably agree with Rick's comment as to the age.

ibeam,
i would hold off on your knife. double edge butter spreaders are hard to come by, lol. :D

that it has been re-wrapped, or a newer example?

as far as the carvings on the hilt is concerned, i don't think it's not much crispier than battara's or your garab's (btw, cool garab. no broken fin or anything ;) ) althought the carvings on the scabbard's toe does look pretty crispy.
as for the mandaya sword, congrats :) you've got yourself a rare piece there. can't wait to see some close ups (hint, hint)

I have a problem with "book swords", meaning those with relatively few examples pictured in many to most books, as not only is the price radically elevated on them, so often it is, or at least WAS, assumed that ALL specimens have to look exactly like the known examples.
When I picked this up for $35 five years ago, even the more learned members swere speculating that it was a "bolo that may have been made by a Philippine smith who'd seen and was influenced by a kukri."(no disrespect intended, as it just shows how obscure some types were even just a few years ago)
From all of the information that has been found since that time, I, at least, am very comfortable with the fact that this is a Manaya sword, base upon the blade shape and the remaining carving on the scabbard, and furthermore, a true weapon as opposed to a tool/machete type implement as there would be no practical advantage in a sharpened upper curve EXCEPT in use as a slashing weapon.
It's so easy to forget that often only extremely impressive examples were, and still are pictured, but that for every Datu there were dozens, if not hundreds of simple warriors
whose weapons were much more basic but did the majority of the real fighting, thus making their condition, of necessity, much rougher.
I often find myself extremely frustrated as individuals make pronouncements of validity based upon just one or two widely seen examples, while it's been proven over and over that there was often a tremndous amount of variation in many to most weapons used and produced by hand on a tribal level.
In the meantime, I keep buying my "strange pieces"based upon gut instinct and similarities to known examples and have been happy that I have time after time that I did.
While I don't have many "Datu class" pieces, each time another form finally gets "discovered" I feel priveledged to at least HAVE a piece from the past that has all but disappeared.
That doesn't mean I'm not envious of those with the superb examples, of course (**grin**), and congratulations aquiring some fine pieces....just in case I happen to be in the area around midnight sometime in the future, you're located where again? **grin**
Mike

I'd like to make a comment at this point , my remarks in this thread were more observations than a pronouncement . I hope that everyone can read them as such . :(

Of course....you mean they could possibly be taken any other way?**grin**
Mike

Pics
 

Here are some pics of the Mandaya swords.

Lovely examples
 

ibeam:

Those are two of the best looking Mandayan bolos I've seen. They are hard to find swords, as you have probably observed. Both seem to have some age -- any idea how old based on provenance?

Congratulations.

congrats, ibeam! scored a nice piece.
the triangular metal piece on the handleand those "disc"; are they silver??? the handle seems to be made out of kamagong. pretty cool!

I really like the tack work, and the S PI metal "ear"/"cheek".

I cant get over how the upturned scabbard on the Mandaya bolos remind me of the pics Spunjer brought back of the Sanduko bolos. Particularly with the diety-esque pommel, cant help but think there is more than a coincidence.

y'know, i was thinking about the same thing... predecessors?

are visayan swords laminated? any examples?

Spunjer:

Hardened edges -- yes, very common.

Laminated blades -- I haven't etched enough Visayan blades to answer how commonly they may be laminated, but my impression is that laminated (pattern-welded) blades are much less common than blades of homogenous steel with an inserted or tempered hardened edge.

Zel probably has the best handle on this question.

Ian.

Traditional Visayan swords I've known are commonly lineal folded steel that has been welded for homogeneity and usually edge-hardened (occasionally spring tempered). Temper lines vary considerably, but stop at or often short of the unsharp shaft at the base of the blade. However, I have seen some (old) ones with inlaid/scarf-welded edges, and currently have a nice big talibon/garab that though I haven't etched it, and may well not, seems to exhibit such. So, yes, they are laminated, though it may depend on what you mean by laminated, and seems to vary with time, if nothing else.

Thanks Tom ...
 

Well put. That was what I was trying to say.

I'd love to know more, especially re the scarf welded edges; are they the older way, as we might expect? Are they seen on mandau? the scarf-welded chiselground blade, often with an overall wedge section is common on Japanese work knives, and I gather it was once seen on Japanese fighting swords, so there seems to be some sort of Oceanic E Asian thing going on (reference the tangs, too, BTW; and when one looks at spears and floormats and much other material culture along the interface of Asia and Pacific one sees a relation.........of course?); I have a feeling that this may be a thing that once was common in places where it modernly is not, but that's all I have; speculation and knowledge from swords and possibly from dimly remembered sailors' and/or collectors' tales re the ancestralness of the c-bevel and/or scarfed-edge blade............

tom, what i mean when i say laminated, something similar to a moro sword, particularly the barung.
could you please elaborate more on this statement: "commonly lineal folded steel that has been welded for homogeneity and usually edge-hardened ". does that mean that if i etch a blade that has that characteristic, what i would get is a very dark edge, almost black, and the rest of the blade is gray, without those "topographic" lines? :confused: :confused: :confused:

More or less. Steel that has been welded for homogeneity, basically simply folded steel, does exhibit layers, even if intially folded up from a single piece (which is not traditionally usual, but I think is seen with swords made from springs, for instance); the fire alters the alloy at the surface of the billet, so the dividing lines can be found, and of course you will see them where there are welding flaws etc, but A/ it will often take a lot of etching, and B/ what was B? Dang, there was B......B/fine layers will often appear as a small-grained lineal fibrousness, almost similar to the inside of rattan.
Moro swords, though less-so kris sundang, are often much like this, too, with a temper line, but the welding is done, for technological and/or aesthetic reasons, for contrast/difference; to leave layers of differing alloys which still retain their individual natures/alloys/properties, and that are easily seen from an etch. Other Moro blades I've seen have inlaid edges, or occasionally panelled construction (like Turkish or medieval German(nic) swords), and some such macro-lamination (with a crosswise temper line that's often visible only in the edge steel, the rest often being unhardenable) appears usual on old kris sundang. So there are two very seperable issues here; micro-lamination (ie. folding or patterning in the steel) which can be done for homogeneity or for contrast; and macro-lamination, which is the joining of larger pieces to form a blade, usually with the idea of using their various properties in appropriate areas, but occasionally for size. Typically the macro laminated SE Asian blade is made of micro laminated pieces, but not always, of course, especially the edge (bit) which is likely more often/earlier imported industrial steel than would be whole blades.

Once I got a double temper line etching a Visayan sword and I don't know what to say about it. There is a narrow stripe at the edge that's dark, and then a wider stipe that's less dark, and then the paler "base" colour, if I may. Sometimes it's hard to tell weld lines from temper lines, but hese lines do not coincide with the grain of the metal.

Some Analysis Please Tom
 

I'd like to read your impressions on these construction methods :

This one too Tom
 

Here is a Visayan sword that I posted a while back in another thread. The edge hardening is obvious after an etch with ferric chloride. What's your take on the method used here?

Photos are difficult to read compared to examining an object but I'll give a go. Rick, That kris sundang apears to be a sandwich type blade, which is usual. It is possible that it is panel-welded, but one does not often see that much wander to the core on panel welded swords, whereas it is fairly common to see in the side plates from forging out the tip on sandwich type blades (is it kind of helical, or does it go toward the same edge on both sides?). The cheeks of the blade seem to show some contrast internally/macro. The very central (widthwise speaking) area seems to perhaps have a more complex pattern of some kind, but is not clear in the photo? Is it humped, or hollowed? Does it show core or a sort of 5 layer constuction; I've seen kris sundang with 5 macro layers; didn't etch 'em, but it'd make sense if the outer one on the flats was a decorative one, and I don't think I've seen an old kris sundang (this is a kris sundang, yes?) with hollow ground flats, which might expose the core on a sandwich blade. Oop Yes I have, but only as a distinct groove; not the subtle hollowed flat. Looking some more. It looks like a more or less flattened hex cross section. Near the tip there's a small welding flaw within the pattern of the most outer macro layer (?), but I wouldn't worry too much about it.
The dog head sword looks to be displaying a temper line. It could be an inlaid edge, but seems to exhibit a jagged uneveness usually seen only from welds if they are for pattern, which is possible, but I don't think is what I'm seeing. Not at all sure though, and probably being influenced by my expectations. Close-up? The blade has some longwise lines that may be fold lines, but are more likely grindlines, and some cloudy shapes that are probably sheen/patination/etc?
The close close up I can't see much in; I think I see an inlaid edge; I see some kind of layering, and only right at the edge. I'm not sure what to make of the dark area on the blunt (?) side of the tip.
Ian, I see a temper line on the one you show. Note it is the same breadth on both sides; a macro weld on this type of blade is expected to be scarfed, so it is wide on the flat side, and narrow like this on the cutting bevel. I don't see any sign of folding, but it looks like an old sword to me, and it probably is folded steel with the other main likelihood being imported foreign industrial steel, but as I say, I suspect that was often folded as well, by PI smiths. Notice the temper line stops well short of the base of the blade.