Flores belida sword, any infos?
 

Hi everybody! Nice to meet you all (this is my first message, so...), even if I already know some of you.

Let's go to the subject,
I'm looking for informations, pictures, everything about the belida sword from Flores Island. I really felt in love with ( :p) , since I saw that blade in the book "Traditional weapons of indonesian archipelago".
If somebody get one to show or, know something, I'm in!
Have a good day or night everybody

Julien G
(ps: please, forgive my English mistakes.... You all know that French aren't good with foreign languages... But I will do my best)

Hi Julien:

Welcome to the Forum!

Nobody has responded to your question yet, and I suspect that is because very few people own one of these swords. I have handled only one, and that was many years ago. They are extremely hard to find and even harder to purchase.

There are some commercial web sites that may have examples among their archives. In this regard, I would suggest that you look on the Oriental Arms web site and other sites featuring ethnographic swords that are listed on this site here

Ian

A quick Bing search found a image from Ashoka Arts. So they had one at some time. Had to search it cause I never heard of it till now. Nice looking sword.

Bonsoir Julien,

Welcome to the forum!

I overlooked your posting - thanks, Ian, for the rescue mission!


Yep, really rare in any condition. It's a pretty small region they're coming from, and the total number of people wearing these status swords would have been very limited.

Fully equipped pieces come with lots of bells and whistles! These needed constant care and restoration during their active use and I'm not sure if any perfectly complete antique example is still extant.


I don't think Artzi ever offered one. I'm attaching pics (courtesy of Stefan and Arjan) for future reference. BTW, both pieces with twistcore blades.

Also check out museum websites (Dutch, especially)! I remember seeing an example that looked less old (art museum in the US) from the pic - so beware of stuff that has been tattered with, especially if haven't handled the real thing yet...

Regards,
Kai

Also don't forget to search this forum: This thread shows a good example, too!

(Museo di Capodimonte, Napoli)

Regards,
Kai

Here's the example from the Natural History Museum, London:

Hello Julian,

Like other members have stated are this type of sword is very rare, I've handled in my collector life only two pieces. And when is offered one for selling is the price extremely high! ;)

Regards,
Detlef

Thanks everybody for your help! More than that... I don't like the style of that blade, but, I saw in the book "traditi traditionnal weapon of the indonesian archipelago" than it can have an other shape...
The handle is really special and that's what got my eyes first!
Thanks again guys. Hope someone will come photo an exemple in collection!