[RobT]

Ian,

A sun with a face and eight rays was on the flag of the Philippine resistance against the Spanish (and later the US). I count eight rays on the sun on the sheath (three on the top, three on the bottom, one fat one at 9 o’clock and another fat one [partially obscured] at 3 o’clock). The rays at 3 and 9 o’clock are short by necessity and I believe that they are fat to give them prominence. If the sheath was decorated during the Philippine resistance period, it is quite old and quite a find.
Regardless of area of origin, my point in my initial response was that the sheath is from the Philippines. That being said, I wouldn’t be too quick to discard the notion that the knife is also. As I said in my initial response, I don’t see anything about the knife itself (design, construction, materials) that would rule it out as having been made in the Philippines. It easily could have been made for a Filipino who wanted a Spanish style knife or it could have been made for a Spaniard living in the Philippines. An old leather sheath can shrink enough so that the blade it was made for no longer fits. Other plausible explanations: Somebody in the Philippines had a knife and and a sheath that fit together well enough (albeit backwards) for carry. Somebody in the Philippines had a knife for sale and paired it with a sheath to make it more marketable (as is done all the time by sellers in the US).

Sincerely,
RobT