All About Pocket Knives

I have some turn of the century spears from Indonesia ... mainly the Philippine island regions. They were brought back from a gentleman who lived there for military purposes at the turn of the century. They are fairly well documented as to what type they are ... two war spears (a fel-feg and a kay-yan) and a poison dart quiver. The fel-feg is also used to hold down a target in head hunting according to some sources, and the kay-yan is mostly decorative but still used in battle ---





There is one item however, I have no idea what it is (the following item in pics) ... that iron ring comes off to reveal a small grooved slot, so I assume this either attaches to a shaft ... or instead a weapon head with a tang attaches to *it* and it's actually the handle for something. It's quite heavy, weighs almost a pound, is about 16.5" long, and would make a good beating stick. The end is quite blunt and bulbous, not sharp in any way whatsover. I thought it was perhaps an axe handle, but it doesn't look like any axe handles in cross reference. Does anyone recognize it ? I'm going to sell the other ones on ebay starting tonight, but I'm not going to sell this one in particular if I don't know what it is : /

Is there a cap on the end of the steel sleeve or is it open? Picture please.

Miller Bro`s wrote:Is there a cap on the end of the steel sleeve or is it open? Picture please.

Sorry I'm at another house all day so I don't have access to the item at the moment to take another pic ... but it's open. No cap. Remove that sleeve, and you see an open wood slot. Not a round slot either, but rectangular.

If that`s the case then I would say it was definitely a handle to something, exactly what I do not know.

If the sleeve comes off easily then the wood probably shrunk, the steel collar would have held the implement tight to the wood handle.

Miller Bro`s wrote:If that`s the case then I would say it was definitely a handle to something, exactly what I do not know.

If the sleeve comes off easily then the wood probably shrunk, the steel collar would have held the implement tight to the wood handle.

Yeah I was leaning in that direction ... it was a handle. It's so heavy, much heavier than the shafts used with the spears. And you think that's steel and not iron ? I was thinking the spear heads pictured above, as well as that sleeve, were iron ...


The handles used on other tribal weapons from that period/region that I've seen (like axes for example) don't resemble this ... so I'm hoping the style and shape of it will be recognized :/

twdroppoint wrote:And you think that's steel and not iron ? I was thinking the spear heads pictured above, as well as that sleeve, were iron ...

Well, you would have to do a metallurgy test on the piece to find out for sure, hard if not impossible to tell from looking at a picture.

Basically, iron is an element while steel is an alloy, iron that contains less than 2% of carbon is called steel whereas which contains more than 2% of carbon is known as pig iron.

Miller Bro`s wrote:

twdroppoint wrote:And you think that's steel and not iron ? I was thinking the spear heads pictured above, as well as that sleeve, were iron ...

Well, you would have to do a metallurgy test on the piece to find out for sure, hard if not impossible to tell from looking at a picture.

Basically, iron is an element while steel is an alloy, iron that contains less than 2% of carbon is called steel whereas which contains more than 2% of carbon is known as pig iron.

I gotcha ...

I was kind of trying to judge by the patina and such, as well as resources that told detailed specifics about how these weapons were manufactured at that time. The book, "The Bontoc Igorot", written at the turn of the century, seems ... at least to me ... to use the term "steel" a bit loosely and perhaps incorrectly, so that it's not exactly clear in what manner he's referring to the metal "steel" in reference to these weapons : /

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it