[Ian]

Spiral:

I'm pretty sure that there would not have been a whole lot of these dha sold in Burma. Consider the following economics.

The cost of the Kachin dha was 47s 6d per dozen, or roughly 4s each, in about 1900 (assuming that is the approximate date for the catalog shown above). The cost of a Burmese dha (high quality) was 67s per dozen or roughly 5s 6d each.

One pound in 1900 would be worth roughly 94 pounds per day. So converting the 1900 prices to today's equivalent would mean that a Hunt and Sons' Kachin dha cost 18 pounds 16s 0d in equivalent money today (or USD 30.33). According to the 1940 catalog, foreign shipments cost another 25% on top of the purchase price, so that would make a 1900 Kachin dha equivalent to 23 pounds 10s (or USD 37.90) today. The price for a Burmese dha plus shipping in today's currency would be roughly 32 pounds 16s (or USD52.90).

Recent economic data indicate that the average daily wage in Burma is USD 1.68-2.02, and average monthly wage is USD 50.51-50.61. And Burma has undergone economic growth since 1900, so that comparative wages should be better now than a century ago. Even so, it is apparent that the cost of William Hunt & Sons' products would have been outside the range affordable for the average Burmese/Kachin consumer in 1900 or today.

So who would have bought these expensive quality items in the colonies? Perhaps expatriots for employees on their plantations. Perhaps wealthy locals who had the money to buy them. But I doubt many would have found their way to the hill country where the largely untamed Kachin lived. Given the considerable savings in cost without any loss of quality from locally made dha, I doubt the foreign imports were very successful.

It is perhaps noteworthy that these machetes had disappeared from the catalog by 1940.

Ian.