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great work you have done so far on this little fellow. To glue the hilt without removing the rattan braiding was for sure a challenge, congrats!
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Thank you for your kind comment on this part of the restoration work on this piece. I must admit that it had taken me quite a few hours of head scratching to finally figure out how to re-align and hold the three broken sections of the hilt together, glue them back into one piece and keep them aligned until the glue had adequate time to dry all without causing damage to or making a complete disaster of the rattan wrapping. Though there is still much work to be done I am very pleased with how it has turned out so far.
Kai, I am not saying that the older higher end examples were not decorated. I was only pointing out that the pieces that I could locate that did have some provenance on when they were collected the ones collected earlier dating to the 19th century all appeared to be of a smaller size and less decorative than the ones collected in the 20th century. I only used the gunong as an example as they seemed to have evolved in their appearance in the same way. Earlier examples look smaller and less decorative than their later counterparts.
Jim, Thank you for your interest and comments on these unusual and rare daggers. I personally became most interested in them when I was preparing to do the restoration work on one of Detlef's examples before it arrived.
Jose, Thank you for your kind words as well. Like you I never knew just how hard it was to acquire one of these until I decided I needed one for my personal collection. All were either too expensive, already sold or in absolutely terrible condition well beyond my poor ability to help.