[Robert]

As I have been absent from the forum for awhile I thought that this might make a nice piece for discussion. I picked this up a few weeks ago and even though I have not had time to to give it a proper cleaning and because of the rarity of these pieces thought I would post it as it arrived. It was misidentified and listed as a Moro panabas instead of an Ilongot "eyaya" in the auction description. For some reason even though it appeared to have
quite a few watchers the auction ended with this piece selling for what I considered a very low price. The wooden scabbard is in very nice condition
and appears to retains most if not all of its brass wire decorations. Of all the twisted wire with red bead and shell decoration only two appear to be missing and another is missing only the small shell piece at its end. Replacement pieces should be easy enough to make. The knifes hilt is wood covered with a combination of round copper and twisted brass wire. It also has a guard/ferrule made from a piece of highly polished bone. The blade has unfortunately suffered from years of neglect and will requite a bit of serious
cleaning. I apologize for the poor photo quality as I used a camera that I am not familiar with. Any comments or information offered would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Robert