Opium for the dha guys
 

Picked this up in a junk shop. I do not know anything really. It looks like an opium poppy pod. low grade silver covering. Total length 255mm, blade section 176mm, blade 65mm. It comes with a tool consisting of a piece of a nail wrapped in very thin copper, one end is a little crumpled. Something might have been in this end? which is house in hole in the hilt and scabbard. Must be from Burma, Thailand.

A INTERESTING ITEM :) CONGRADULATIONS.
THEY DO USE A KNIFE TO CUT THE POPPY SEED PODS AND THEN COLLECT THE SAP THAT COMES OUT FOR MAKEING OPIUM. THE KNIFE MUST HAVE SOME ASSOCIATION WITH THAT JUDGING FROM ITS LOOKS BUT LOOKS IMPRACTICAL FOR ACTUAL USE IN THE POPPY FIELDS SO PERHAPS A CEREMONIAL ITEM :confused:

Something from the Golden Triangle maybe ...
 

Hi Tim:

That's an interesting item. Opium-related seems a good guess, but I don't know the function of the small accessory piece -- perhaps to scoop up or store some of the resin from the poppy.

The decoration looks Shan or "hill tribe" from the northern Thai/Burma/Laos /Southern China (Yunnan) area -- that is, the Golden Triangle region and we know that there is a substantial amount of opium trading there!

Perhaps one of our Thai members will recognize it.

Ian.

I've never seen anything like it, but the decoration is what you often see on some Shan dha. I wonder if the copper tube is supposed to stay in the "scabbard," as a lining to the wood? So when you pull out the knife you have the little spike sticking out of the scabbard? What is that residue on the end of the spike? It looks gummy, meaning it might be poppy resin.

It looks a lot like carbon. Not having smoked raw opium I am unsure of my facts but I believe a small ball of sticky opium is heated up prior to smoking. Perhaps gathered and heated on the crumpled end of the rolled copper, the nail is to hold and avoid heat transference. Just a wild guess you understand.