Conogre, nice looking sword; I find especially interesting the way the "scales" are just barely longer than the tang and drawn together around its end; seems like a (very un-American, for instance) lack of concern with having the tang be "full" to the handle. I don't think it's quite the same type of sword, though it certainly bears a resemblance, and I'd call it, I guess, a matulis descendent; there's only the slightest nod to either the s-curve or the particular taper (as I described in one of these threads) of matulis; rather, despite a pretty vestigial seeming (?) clip to the spine, it seems to be more or less parrallel, edge-to-spine, and if anything, slightly swell-tipped, rather than the squared, but nevertheless narrowed tip we've been seeing. Yours is of a type; I've seen others; it seems like an evolution of matulis, and perhaps it is a matulis, but it's significantly different, of a significantly different style than any others we've discussed so far. The other "cut point" matulis we've seen still display the narrowing toward the tip that makes sense on a thrusting blade (of which it is a vestige, I think), while yours has "decided" (if you will) to take fuller advantage of the fact that it doesn't have a point to say "let's have a tip that's REALLY good for cutting, then; a widened one with mass and momentum, that will be less prone to excessive vibration that robs your cut of its force.). Is 3/8" a typo? It doesn't look that thick in the photos? I've been noticing those Visayan type belt tabs; Rick's one we saw the scabbard has one, and guess who else? One of my famous Mexican bolos!
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16th April 2005, 01:34 PM
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