Mandau bone hilt

[RhysMichael]

Originally Posted by lelang69

dear Andrew, Mark, Mross, and vandoo,


Thanks for the fiewing the hilt.

I am not the expert or scientist who can detect it is bone or not.

The dayak himself, MR Bangking. the iban dayak give me this hilt from the heard of borneo. was he a lier? i don't know. can he make a plastic, casting etc. I am sure he didn't. he just an farmer and hunter for a living.

It's just i explain it to you.

If you want to know the price please sent me an e-mail at, lelang69@yahoo.com,

thanks very much

regards,

Tonny

Indonesia

Tonny
I do not think anyone was questioning your honesty or that of the person you got it from. Instead I believe this was an academic interest from those of us trying to learn how to make such evaluations. Its often hard to tell what a hilt is made of and would be even harder to tell what type of bone or ivory it is. So we plug along and pick up tricks to tell such things when we can to make us more informed collectors. Sometimes like this case the data comes from providence and that is good too but it will not help us with the next sword hilt we are looking at as much as say the black light info would.
John