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Originally Posted by nacho
I was in the National Museum (Philippines) last week to look at the weapons display -- items from the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. Half of the kris swords on display have very shiny, no-pattern and polished-looking blades (new looking). The other half have darker gray blades with grainy patterns. All of them are pre-1904.
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I suspect that many of these were sent back to the PI from vets here in the US and there was a custom back in the late 1800s to the mid 1900s of polishing up blades from any country to make them shiny. Many Nepalese kora were ruined this way by Victorians polishing out blade engravings. In the US collectors would do the same to PI/Moro pieces and even US Civil War swords. They would even throw away the scabbards of Moro and US Civil War pieces.
This is probably why you see so many shiny blades there in the museum. Also, once captured, the vets did not know to keep the blades in etched condition (if they werent polished),