Another Unique Piso Podang or Chenangkas
 

This blade caught my eye at the Baltimore show in March 2013. The immediate appeal was the lovely and elegant silver hilt in the piso podang style. Note the unusually long, elegant langets.

Above and beyond the hilt the blade was a real eye catcher as well. It has a long straight(technically making it a chenangkas, rather than a piso podang) and very thin pamor steel blade, making it almost certainly a ceremonial or status piece.

More importantly, note the triple fullers on both sides of the blade...hardly something we would expect to see on an Indonesian blade of pamor construction. The fullers look like they belong more comfortably on a medieval European sword, a Sudanese kaskara, or a Taureg takouba.

And here is a yet another example of outside influences on Indonesian blades, even if we are not sure if it is an European influence, or one from the Islamic world.

The scabbard is newly made.

Dimensions: Overall length 35in., Blade length 29in., Blade's widest point 1.25in.

Thanks for any comments or input.

Hello Charles

I love these swords and this one is excellent.
Take a look at a post of mine from Sept 25th 2008 from picture 6 onwards.
My blade is very similar, unfortunately no silver hilt though.

Regards
Roy

You show us every time outstanding swords, thank you! :)

Roy,

Your example seems to have much more of a fighting blade compared to this one.

OK now I could get into this! It has all the elements that I like (although missing silver inlay) including the silver hilt and pamor blade.

Perdy!

Quote by Charles - Your example seems to have much more of a fighting blade compared to this one

Charles

Not so sure about that as mine is only about 3/16" thick at maximum. It is very flexible.

Roy

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that this is an Indian blade. I have seen very thin, flexible blades with this type of fullering from India and the mechanical Damascus pattern that you see here is not uncommon from that region.