Help ID Asian knife, bronze? blade, carved ivory

[bernard_levine]

I've been asked to ID and appraise this evidently well made but oddly impractical knife.
It appears to be a recent souvenir, but of high quality. It has lost its scabbard.

The owner tested the blade with a magnet, and it did not stick.
He suspects it is bronze, or perhaps patinated brass.

I asked a collector of Javanese and Malayan edged weapons,
and he said it is probably not from there.
He said Burma might be a possibility, as the ferrule shape is reminiscent of a Dha,
and there is quite a bit of commercial ivory carving done in Burma now.

For example see picture 33 here.

http://www.asianart.com/articles/ivory/index.html

* * *

So... do you recognize it? Seen something similar on your travels?

Thanks!

BRL...

 

[Nasty]

Respectfully...moved per Spark's policy since it is not an HI knife.

 

[kronckew]

hi,

looks like a dha/darb to me, burmese or maybe thai, they come in sizes ranging from prayer dha's with a blade of a few inches, on up to the more normal swords. can't tell much from the pictures re the blade, but it looks nice, scabbard would have helped diagnose it's origins a bit easier. there were a few carved bone/ivory dha handles very much like that one on the ethnographic arms and armour forum site, and it might be worthwhile posting this there for their review. the dha handles were in this thread

 

[not2sharp]

There are a few examples of dha's posted here:

http://www.vikingsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002442.html

Your's looks very much like these (from Burma):

n2s

 

[kronckew]

more similar ones on the dha research index pages

 

[spiraltwista]

Yep I concur, Definatly Dha, Id guess Burma as well, But Mark Bowditch at Ethnographic arms forum or Dha research site can probably pin it to tribe or region.

Spiral