Bicol Ginunting

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by xasterix

Aside from Bicol, there are two other places which may have made the pieces you posted- Masbate and Samar. They have been known to make figurals similar to Bicol's (and even have the minasbad blade profile). So there's the possibility that yours may have come from those areas.

Hi Xas,

You were the one who has identified this type of sword as binakla, yes there are slight differences in the handle styles but generally they could get named as inaso, dog or bat style. Blade style is by nearly all examples (this thread and the one I posted) nearly similar. So when one gets called binakla I call a very similar sword as well as binakla, also when it gets called in Masbate or Samar differently. It's a cultural and linguistic related region.
So when a knowledgeable person would say it's very similar but maybe from Masbate or Samar but simply saying it's for sur not Bicol at last is courageous IMVHO. I for my part have described my both swords as binakla from the Bicol region and don't want to change it now but keep in mind that also Masbate and Samar could be a possibility.

Originally Posted by xasterix

Yves, I don't think your blade is 100+ years old. The sure 100+ years Bicol blades would be those with D-guards and old-school figurals. If basing on the samples gathered by the minasbad researcher / trader known as The Minasbad Shop, your sample would be around WW2 era.

Agree with you, the reason I've asked Yves before, the scabbard bands from aluminium could be a later replacement but like you I noticed the handle style. But we would need to see better pictures.

Regards,
Detlef

[Ian]

Here are the additional pictures of the blade I posted above. The thickness of the spine just in front of the hilt is 8.5 mm measured with a micrometer. The width of the blade tapers quickly moving away from the hilt, and the cutting area of the blade is about 3-4 mm wide for much of its length, tapering further to 1-2 mm wide near the tip. The clipped spine has a sharp back edge for about 20 cm. Both the regular and back edges are razor sharp and symmetrically V-ground (not chisel-ground). The regular cutting edge has been quench hardened.

The hilt has finger cut outs and what appears to be a bat's head for the pommel. The hilt is full tang.

Length of blade = 48.0 cm (18.9 in), length of hilt = 13.8 cm (5.4 in).

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