This may be a stretch but... My tech has a sword set that her father brought back from the Vietnam war. Trying to figure out the details on them. There's some interesting marking on the blades, and the handles are made of bamboo. I'll post pics here in a little bit, but is there anyone here who has any kind of working knowledge of these swords?
How much you wanna bet they were crafted by Nguyen? Cool stuff though, I'm sure someone on here is a Vietnamese sword guru. This forum is better than all encyclopedias + google combined.
Track down a guy named jd smith of Hammersmith knives. He's a bladedsmith I knew a few years ago and he's still in the game. Hell tell you everything you need to know. He's a little elusive but he can be found on a few of the knife forums.
You could post up the info on Bladeforums. There are some really knowledgeable guys on that site. I'm sure that someone there will know about this sword.
Thai Dha, village grade, possibly Montagnard. They are considered as both a weapon and a tool. Chop, slash, draw. Single- or two-handed.
Any value to these? (will check the knife forums tonight after work as well) This place never ceases to amaze.
Pretty cool looking but my bet is that it's worth not a whole hella lot. More of a tool than something like a 1000 year old (example here) Japanese Samurai sword. But I could be wrong and it would be cool to hear what you find out.
Could be $200-$500, as is, individually or for the pair. It's possible those blades could be more than a hundred years old. Then again, they coulda been made in the '60s. The engraved "eye" would tell you more about its value. Figure that out and you'll know about all you can. The slash marks may be a date code...not necessarily as we understand dates.
Yeah I figured the "eye" would tell me something, just haven't gotten to finding anything yet. I'm hoping the slash marks are number of kills -like on a fighter jet! I'm looking to get it for my son who - hopefully - will be getting his black belt in June. He starts cycle next month, and this would be a cool gift for him, I think. Especially since my pops served in Vietnam, and The Boy is very much into Dad's history and military service. I think he'd very much appreciate the significance of the swords. If it's worth a couple hundred bucks, I'll buy it from her for that. If it's worth a couple thousand, I'm gonna tell her to keep it as an heirloom.