Gunong
 

Have won this gunong at an auction. The seller pretended not to know what it was and its origin, and surprisingly I had only one or two relentless competitors.
I did not win cheap, but at the end I think I paid the right price. In my opinion the gunong is a rather recent manufacture and therefore is in good shape. I have not yet received the item, and the photo is from the auction site. As everybody has understood, this is not my "cup of tea".
Any comment from gunong collectors ?

Not my cup of tea either and until couple of weeks ago i could condescendingly critique your choices. But just recently I bough ( cheap) Indonesian or Philippino dagger of recent manufacture. Why on earth did I do it? I kinda liked it and that’s it…..

Nicely made and as you say reasonably recent piece (post WWII, probably last quarter of 20th C). I think you will find that most of the white metal is a form of white brass. The exception might be the guard which was sometimes made from coin silver. All will look better when polished. The blade has been made largely by stock removal rather than having the wavers forged.

Thanks a lot, Ariel and Jan.

Sorry, IAN

Stock removal like this started in tunings in the 1920s I think, but I agree with Ian that this is probably post 1940s. It became very popular by the 1930s as the demand for laminated steel dropped.

Also from that point on metals like nickel/copper alloys (also known as "German Silver") and aluminum became more common place as time went on to replace silver and even silver plate.

Thanks for the interesting comments.

That dating seems generous José. With pointy luks like that this seems more likely to be at least post 1960s.
I agree with others that this seems to be fairly well made. It is most probably mono steel rather than laminated. Ian is probably correct that the white metal is white brass, but i would think that coin silver is unlikely. It could be German silver, which we all probably know actually has no silver content at all. Sorry you had a bidding war on this piece. Hope you weren't forced to pay too high a price for it. I like a nice old gunong, but like others, these modern pieces are not my cup of tea either, though it is not an unattractive piece. ;)

Thanks David. I agree with your comments.

I have seen one of these Gunongs recently appear in the NL where they are very rare , unlike Indonesian-Malay keris which are plentiful due to the colonial history. Surprisingly I see it still on offer.

The reason why someone may fall in love with any object are really any and in the end the only person you have tom convince is yourself. Enjoy it!

... after cleaning

Hi GIO,


Nice cleaning job. It looks much better, and the quality of workmanship is good. Nice example of a modern gunong.