fossil molar baronn scabbard restoration
 

Hi folks. I finally got pictures of this scabbard I did for this unique barong:

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002314.html

I did this scabbard a year or more ago. Since I believe this to be an early 20th century battle Samal barong, I made the scabbard accordingly.

Enjoy

Battara,
Beautiful work as always. I have a couple of questions that I've been meaning to ask about the carvings used on the throat and tip of these and other wooden scabbards. Were they actually carved into the wood, punched in, or a combination of the two? On some of the ones that I have the decorations look to have been almost embossed into the wood like the tooling that you would see on leather scabbards, while on others you can readily tell that it was done with a blade. I thank you for any help that you can offer in answering these questions.

Robert

Thank you Robert. This one took a longer time due to the carvings.

Yes, the carvings on wooden scabbards - they are carved with carving tools or a knife. As far as I know, one can not "punch" into wood like that into leather - wood is not soft enough. IT would be very difficult (if not impossible) to emboss wood.

Some of yours may have been shallowly carved. I do a little deeper carving myself.

Since I originally started this thread, I found finally found one mention in one source from George Frederick Kunz in his book Ivory and the Elephant in Art, in Archaeology, and in Science, 1916, p348:

“The molar of an elephant has been found in the island of Luzon, Philippines. This was probably brought thither from India. On the island of Mindanao a tooth of Stegodon trigonocephalus mindanaoensis was discovered. This genus stands between the mastodon and the modern elephant, although more nearly resembling the latter. This is the only instance on record of the finding of such remains in the Philippine Islands. The tooth was found in the north- western part of the island, and is at present in the Ethno- logical Museum at Dresden (No. 2679). The discovery was made by Semper, who described it as "a tooth of the war god Tagbusu of the Manobos, only to be worn by a Bagani (a priest or a prince); it was used as a talisman."
The tooth is bound with varicolored strings, so attached that it could be worn suspended.”

If you folks find any other information, please post or let me know.

I have attached close ups of the stegodon fossil molar pommel.

Also here is a link of the discussion of this type of material over at the kerns forum: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12973

Kudos, Jose. Fine work on that scabbard!