[Spunjer]

100 years ago a collector was typically a nobleman with a profound education, who upon feeling the approach of his demise would write most likely a single work that would encompass his lifelong activities.

yes, i picture a white mustachioed man wearing a red velvet robe smoking a pipe writing about his exploits in the savage lands of india and southeast asia, were dastardly natives are noted for their peculiar habit of stretching their lips, and yet produces the most interesting and unusual types of weapons yet unseen in the 'civilized' world. of how he crossed (i'm sure riding in the back of an elephant while the natives walked and carry all his belongings) and explored the vast jungles of dark africa.
yet a hundred years later with all the braggadocios of these exploits that has little to do with our shared enthusiasm, we are still bickering whether those palias (really trying to conform with english only post, but i'm sorry, doesn't know the english translation for this word) on the spine of the muslim pilipino's head chopper axes signifies talsimanic symbols or numbers of heads lopped off by that certain weapon. we have pictures of their great collections, and yet it doesn't help us explain certain properties of why the sword was this way and not that way, or what's the significance of those inlays. books, such as stone's, are profoundly flawed, though i consider him as a profoundly educated man. the bottom line is, our knowledge regarding our collection has markedly improved since the early days of those educated noblemen, and i believe this is due to being able to communicate in a level field with the same people who's ancestors were the one responsible in making the same type of weapons. but then again, maybe i'm being too nationalistic. i do know this: traveling to the philippines and being able to talk to the older folks certainly gave me a better perspective and whole new outlook on the weapons that i have in my collection.

Today a typical weapons collector is a nationalistic young fellow who after a few sessions of karate decides to bless the world with the description of his own country's martial culture. From this point on he can spent a few years doing a Ph.D. on the subject, where he will learn that he can not really learn much in academic environment since arms and armour is not a significant part of academic classes, and 99% of historian and art historians have their knowledge of the subject formed by movies and the BS published by Osprey. Another option is that he will write a book, which is typically a bizarre mixture of quotes from old classical texts, photographs of his friends' swords and his own research, the latter is typically beyound BS.

i have no idea that we share the same sentiment on cato's book. the ironic thing about it though is that to this day, the book is still regarded as the 'bible' to most muslim pilipino sword enthusiasts.

From this point I see no reason to popularize the knowledge or studies of arms and armour, but rather deepen it. As of today we lack the people who publish at least 1 article on the subject every 4 months or so, we lack any kind of educational opportunities extended to students at universities, which makes our community pretty much off-mainstream. As of now there are only very few people whom I would experts in some part of our field, the rest I would put together with me in the category of enthusiasts.

my take on this is, one's enthusiam can go a long way. if you're really interested to find out more about your collection, why wait for everybody else's contribution to be posted in this here forum (or any other forums) when you can do your own research? this forum can only take you so far. this is not a cheap hobby for sure, and you can't be on a government sustenence if you're planning on starting on collecting. my point is, for a few sacrifice, meaning not buying two or three swords for awhile, maybe one can use that fund to make that trek to your weapon's origin. to the muslim pilipino weapon collectors, a trip to mindanao and/or sulu is just a hopsctoch from manila, a mere $50.00. when you come back, maybe write an article about what you've learn.

(it is kind of hard to give precise years of any undeclared war)

• On August 14, 1898, 11,000 American ground troops were sent to occupy the Philippines

• Hostilities started on February 4, 1899 when an American soldier shot a Filipino soldier who was crossing a bridge into Filipino-occupied territory in San Juan del Monte, an incident historians now consider to be the start of the war.

-Wikipedia