[RobT]

Hi All,
Hopefully someone can Id this sword. I'm stumped. The T-rib blade measures 19" (48.26cm) and the hilt is 4.5" (11.43cm). At the hilt the spine measures 9/32" (7.5mm). The blade edge is distinctly rebated from the sides of the blade but the edge thickens up next to the hilt. Near the tip there are three notches on the spine. The regularity of size and spacing indicate deliberate placement by the smith or owner. Save for these notches, the blade is unadorned but shows evidence of folding. The hilt is wood with a brass ferrule and a brass band below the pommel. Both the ferrule and the band have punched decorations that differ on either side of the blade. The carving on the hilt appears to be an imitation of a braided and wound fiber hilt wrapping. The wooden cheeks of the sheath appear to have been held apart by a steam bent piece of rattan? (bamboo?, wood?) that has now broken at the tip. An 8" (20.32cm) wide piece of rawhide forms the sheath throat. The rawhide has been laced together on the back of the sheath with vegetable fiber thread that appears to have been tarred. I suspect the the lower part of the sheath was held together with some sort of wrapping also. Given the blade and hilt shapes plus the notches on the blade, my guess is a south east Asian dha relative but the blade is much lighter in weight than any dha I've seen and the T-rib isnt typical for dha either. The hilt sort of looks like a Thai dha but it's much shorter. So, as I said at the beginning, I'm stumped.
Sincerely,
RobT