Have received the barong as well. The wire binding was broken in down so I decided to remove it. The handle has had wiggled on the blade and was like seen on the previous pictures not enough down to the tang so I removed the handle, it was attached with some sort of resin or glue and steel wool and I think that a previous owner has tried to attach the lose handle in this way and has destroyed the wire binding by this when it was not already broken before. So I have dismantled all parts and cleaned, polished and etched the blade which show now a fine lamination near the edge. The ferrule rings from white metal I've glued with two-component adhesive in place since they don't hold byself maybe because the wood is shrunken by time. I have also given it a new handle wrap with natural twine, I still need to paint the twine black and to reattach the handle to the blade.
Here some pictures of the state from my restore work.
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