Large slender Moro knife

[kai]

Hello Ian,

It has an unusual blade for a Moro knife, being considerably narrower than a barung and perhaps more suited to stabbing than cutting. The silver punto and banati wood hilt are similar to what are seen on many barung.
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It's possible that this is a reworked barung, possibly one that suffered some serious edge damage. The cutting edge is angled adjacent to the punto, perhaps indicating that the original blade profile was wider than now.

It sure does look like a reworked barung - did you ask the seller how thick the blade is?

I doubt this will make an efficient dagger. Unless the blade has been thinned out a lot, it should still have enough mass for many cutting purposes. I'd guess it would serve well as a general purpose bolo...

The pommel is carved from nicely selected wood; I'd agree that this is an early version of the modern style, probably dating to the first quarter of the 20th c.

Regards,
Kai