Piso Gading

[kai]

Hello Roland,

Congrats, a neat piso gading from the Toba Batak - it really is a beauty. Thanks for putting in so much effort and posting the restoration results here!

While Batak blades rarely exhibit showy pamor of decent contrast, the laminations are often nicely visible and very interesting from a blacksmith's perspective!

The scabbard rings may well be silver. The mouth and foot pieces will have been done by the lost wax method - my best bet would be that the utilized alloy is closer to white brass rather than a low silver alloy though.

I'm still slightly confused about the massive hilt, it's simply too big even for large hands as mine.
But the very sharp blade got some nicks so it was definitely used. I wonder how to hold this blade in action, is there a special technique?

These are status swords that most likely saw ceremonial use only. From the looks of it, the blade may well be older than the already old fittings; maybe a user blade which got promoted to ceremonial use at one point?

Regards,
Kai

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by kai

These are status swords that most likely saw ceremonial use only. From the looks of it, the blade may well be older than the already old fittings; maybe a user blade which got promoted to ceremonial use at one point?

Hello Kai,

very good thought which will make sense!

Regards,
Detlef

[Battara]

So.......are there any brass monkeys in zoos anywhere?

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by kai

Hello Roland,

These are status swords that most likely saw ceremonial use only. From the looks of it, the blade may well be older than the already old fittings; maybe a user blade which got promoted to ceremonial use at one point?

The scabbard rings may well be silver. The mouth and foot pieces will have been done by the lost wax method - my best bet would be that the utilized alloy is closer to white brass rather than a low silver alloy though.


Regards,
Kai

Hello Kai,

thank you for your explanation, that makes sense.

Yes, the scabbard rings are of a different material than the endings. The previous owner made a professional laboratory test and they had problems to define the material clearly but it definitely contains silver.

And it is always like christmas and birthday on one day if I see such a structure after days or weeks of hard manual work. In 2016 I had this wonderful moment at least five times.


Best wishes,
Roland