A Longleaf from IMA

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olpappy

Joined
Dec 6, 2004
Messages
1,241
You guys are a bad influence, I ordered a Victorian longleaf from IMA, with the hand select option, here are some pics and description. It arrived heavily wrapped in layers of plastic and cosmoline. The handle wood seems rather fragile, there was a loose chunk of wood which broke off during shipment, I found it floating around in the plastic. Hopefully I can glue it back. I wonder if there is some method of stabilizing aged, fragile wood of this type. Anyone work for a museum? The wood also has cosmoline all over it.

blade length: 15" OAL: 19.25"
max spine thickness 12mm at the bolster
max blade width 67mm at the belly
wt approx 700g / 26 oz

Handle has many large chips around the edges.
The edge is very worn and dull over the sweet spot and tip.

The inscription on the spine seems to say Shree 3 Chandra, Na ?Sa I cannot figure out the rest of it.

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Whoooa! Very Cool Blade! Almost looks more "sirupati" than the ones we have been getting lately. I wouldn't worry bout the chip too much. They all seem to have plenty of chips on that part of the handle. Many seem to be heavily used and have some bent edges etc. Yours looks pretty good! The character after the "na" is an ra? something off the top of my fuzzy memory. Ill help you decode it soon as I get a free moment. Im on break from makin a sledge hammer handle with my (wifes) KLVUK now:D Love that knife! I washed the blade off with gasoline and it just rinsed off without scrubbing but the handle I cleaned with alcohol and dawn dishwashing soap and all came pretty clean with no abrasive action. I dont know if they can be stabilized or not? If you plan to use it the handle may not last very long being that old and brittle. I would be interested to see where the balance point is and the max width at the belly. Love the shape of that one! Lucky find for sure! I gave one of mine to a friend:thumbup: who showed some interest in these blades so maybe time for another.
 
If you try to glue the piece back on you need to get all he grease and oil out of the handle. Dawn or I use Simple Green and on some occasions oven cleaner. I hold it over a bucket (or sink if your wife ain't home) and take the solution and wipe the handle. Slosh plenty on but I don't submerge for any length of time. Have to let all the stuff you want out run off.
It will eventually clean up but will be dry and sometimes even kind of whiskery. That's a good thing. Then you can glue your piece, fine tune any shaping you want to mess with and sand it smooth and then go with linseed or tung oil etc.

I've done a lot of old military rifles that were just soaked in oil and grease.

That's a beautiful blade. One mans nasty looking piece of junk is another mans treasure. I love it It's a beautiful thing.
 
Refreshing my memory (not an easy task btw) I recall Jens' IMA sample (right)and yours look about the same. Notice the more turned down handle on his AC sample (left).

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The balance point on my AC is also more forward at 6.25" inches compared to your 5.5"
The spine thickness seems about the same on all of them. Mine is actually thicker where the script is hammered but due to spreading behind the fullers. Its actually 12.4mm there.

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My less than educated guess at your inscription would be:
Shree 3: Cha ndra Na ra (?) 8/1 (jha?)

The last character on your blade is the same as seen on my blade (2nd character) and I think it was Verpra says he thinks it may be "jha" but is in a strange place:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...Historical-Khukuri-Long-leaf-Victorian/page17

श्री ३: चन्द्र : रा (?) ८/१ झ
Possibilities?:
Shree Narsimha Dal Company
Shree Narsingh Battalion
Ill add more later if I can figure it out.
 
Ahah! I have discovered a clue. The 2nd character ( after 'Na" ) matches the "Shree" on the spine of the kukri marked Shree Nath battalion in this thread:

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?97185-Atlanta-Cutlery-IMA-Spine-Inscriptions

(second photo from the top, third (bottom) blade)

Remarkable that they have the same two characters, except the order is reversed.


If this is correct, the "Na" followed by "Shree" seems to be most consistent with the Shree Naya Shree Nath battalion among the names listed.


Regarding the 2nd (yellow line) character on your blade, I notice that it matches the character translated as a "9" on the same swordforums kukri #3 inscription translated as "Shree 3 Chandra Shree Nath 9 | 72 "

DEFSpinesb_zps3db1c4a3.jpg


Hope I don't break any rules putting it here, just makes things easier to understand. Anyway on your blade looks to me like (?) 9 | 4 6
 
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I believe your right! Since the honorific shree is dropped it would be Naya shree. Where's the "Nath"? Seems many are abbreviated anyway. Does seem like the best fit so far. There is a book (Guns of the Gurkhas by John Walter) they are getting much of this info from and I think that would be my next step to trying to figuring out some of these inscriptions. I will probably get it when I can part with some Khukri money.
 
ndoghouse said:
I believe your right! Since the honorific shree is dropped it would be Naya shree. Where's the "Nath"? Seems many are abbreviated anyway. Does seem like the best fit so far. There is a book (Guns of the Gurkhas by John Walter) they are getting much of this info from and I think that would be my next step to trying to figuring out some of these inscriptions. I will probably get it when I can part with some Khukri money.
Click to expand...

My old list of regiments on the featured link,came from the Royal Nepali army website, before the Maoists took over.

But I got a copy of Guns of the Gurkhas a couple of years later when the did a special weekend offer, {postage to UK was still a killer though...}

Anyway until you can grab a copy, here a pic of the "N" regiments from the book.



The Shree Nath , as they were usualy known were attached to The Brit. arm in WW2 in both ww1 & 2, for garrison duties & what were poliltly called "policing actions on the NWF & NEF regions, although some of them did also fight against the Japanese in Burma during ww2 I think.

Hope that helps ,


spiral
 
I just keep thinking what a fantastic khukri I could get for HI for the same price. These old khukri's have a lot of history of course, and it's cool to be a part of it. But if you buy a new HI Khuk you know it's going to be passed down for generation after you're long gone, and its history is going to start with YOU.
 
That is very true! I cant argue with that reasoning:thumbup: When you put one of these GAK's in your hands suddenly you realize where some modern Khuk designs come from. There is no question where some other than HI and even some HI models originate. Also they tell you a lot about the wielder. It is obvious they were not made for wuss hands. You know they were made for fighting but they feel like what we are used to calling choppers. There are exceptions of course but these blades make me appreciate HI designs just that much more.
blue lander said:
I just keep thinking what a fantastic khukri I could get for HI for the same price. These old khukri's have a lot of history of course, and it's cool to be a part of it. But if you buy a new HI Khuk you know it's going to be passed down for generation after you're long gone, and its history is going to start with YOU.
Click to expand...
Thanks Spiral! Glad to see this info is available!
 
Agreed. These old blades really suck you in, wondering about how it used or how it earned each little deformation. I don't know about the long leafs, but with the bhojupur I got you can tell it was designed to just destroy whatever you swung it at. These aren't blades you wore with you just for dress or as a last resort. They're bone crushing monsters
 
Having a mysterious inscription on the spine that I couldn't decipher was driving me crazy, especially with tantalizing tidbits of info floating around the internet. Still need to clarify the last bit, presumably the subunit and number of the weapon (or soldier?)

So far my best guess is 8 | 7 (?) The last one resembles a 'dui' (2) that has been rotated 120 degrees counterclockwise.

Although they were probably bulky to carry, a soldier would have definitely felt safer using a large blade like these to parry an enemy coming at you with a fixed bayonet or a katana. Interestingly, there are some YouTube videos of modern gurkhas performing a "kukri dance" which incorporates some martial type movements, the modern version looks like it has been downsized a bit, but still looks quite effective.

It is infinitely useful to have an authentic antique example to compare to recently made kukris in terms of their dimensions, weight, balance etc. When reading accounts of kukris being used in WWI and II everything becomes that much more meaningful when you can handle an original military kukri of that era. Chandra Shamsher was prime minister from 1901-1925, so these pieces are about 100 years old. I have plenty of regular kukris like the KLVUK which are well suited for heavy outdoor work, this one has a special place as the "ancestor" of my HI kukris. Furthermore it came from the Royal Armory.

Spiral, thanks for posting the pic of the names of the 'N' regiments, very interesting to see the names written out properly in Devangari.
 
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olpappy said:
Regarding the 2nd (yellow line) character on your blade, I notice that it matches the character translated as a "9" on the same swordforums kukri #3 inscription translated as "Shree 3 Chandra Shree Nath 9 | 72 "

DEFSpinesb_zps3db1c4a3.jpg


Hope I don't break any rules putting it here, just makes things easier to understand. Anyway on your blade looks to me like (?) 9 | 4 6
Click to expand...
Your right! However notice the date on that post and later through these posts I have seen the character that looks like a "9" being referred to as a "1" which does look close to the Devenagari digit "1" written out correctly (१). (9)=९,(7)=८
Yep I'm thoroughly confused now! I'll see if I can connect some authors to some characters later on. Thanks for the insight. I does make more sense that the 2nd (yellow line) character on my blade is a number. It would be consistent with many of the other inscriptions.
 
The first photo of Mr Judkins' swordforums thread, middle blade is numbered 7176 with the '9' looking figure translated as the number 7. I don't know how they got their translation, but the pictures and translations in that thread have been much more helpful in terms of being able to find matching scripts and making sense of things, whereas the nepal trekking tourism web page often times does not yield any matches, perhaps the modern way of writing has changed somewhat since the time these inscriptions were made.

If one examines carefully the spines of the blades pictured in that thread, along with their English translations given, it is possible to identify quite a few symbols matching our 'unknown' ones with their English translations.
 
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