Thai priest knife

[lordkoos]

Here are pics of some others that I've turned up. The first one is a ceremonial knife, the bone handle is carved with seven images of Phra Pit-da, which literally means "Lord no-see", the Buddha rejecting the world. It's possible that figure could originally have been a pre-Buddhist, animist origin. When I got this knife, someone had repaired it with an ugly aluminium bolster, so I had a local silversmith restore it with the correct silverwork, he did a perfect job of matching the scabbard, it turned out great IMHO.

The next two are more typical northern Thai hill tribe items, fairy old though, especially the one with the smooth ivory handle. The bottom one I think is bone.