VOC BLADES: A comprehensive look

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by asomotif

A few years ago I read a book "De jacht op sandelhout" by Arend de Roever (2002).
It describes how the VOC forced themselves into the Sandalwood trade from Timor. The VOC was present on Timor from 1613 till 1799.
The trade was a complex system of all kinds of raw materials and semi finished products that where traded by the VOC between Europe, Indonesia, but also China, Japan, India.

Sandalwood was brought from Timor to China and India and Bali.
It describes also that sword blades where placed in the ships sailing from Europe as trade material and also serving as ballast.

Interestingly, a lot of weapons that I recall with VOC blades are timor swords. Sorry Maurice, This is getting close to speculation.

Best regards,
Willem

Thank you Willem for bringing it up.

Indeed very strange that most of the VOC blades are timor swords.
I don't know about Timor a lot, did they had own blacksmiths? If not that could be a reason for finding there so many trade blades.

However I have also seen VOC blades on old Preanger swords. Gavin had one nice gobang for sale with dated VOC blade recently.
Also I've seen a dated VOC blade on a Bandjermasin keris, and on a lanceblade from Borneo, which is in the Bronbeek museum now.

However all had not the right provenance to prove these really were old tradingblades from the VOC.

Maurice