for the life of me, i can't remember who told me this, but yeah, it's possible that the weapons on display might be bandholtz's. reason i said that, i was told that his descendants returned half (!) of his collection to the Philippine Govt not too long ago.
as far as polished and new looking blades, i wouldn't doubt that at all; here are some examples that was brought over by an american officer in 1900, and was literally frozen in time since once it got here, it was stored (pics taken by me):


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r/9539cedc.jpg



oh, and wassup fellas?

Yes, that's exactly how many of the blades in the exhibit looked like -- polished blades like stainless steel. I guess they must been polished to make them look nice for the exposition and then kept all these years. That's why they look that way.

I also collect ivory santos and we know that 100 year-old ivory kept inside a glass virina can look new and without the yellowing we call patina. I guess for 100 year-old kris pommels, the same thing can be expected. Meaning they can look new if kept/stored all these years.

nacho,
not necessary polished, but rather it looked like that to begin with. reason i said that is because the same krises i posted above, there were pictures taken of the same swords by the original collector before it left the philippines, and it looked exactly the same, without any hint of being etched. here are some other ones. notice how shiny the one third from the top is:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r/2da1e06c.jpg
wow, i would live to see that collection! i only saw the same five or six that was displayed in the old museum.
nacho, if you can take some pics and post it here, it would be most appreciated. i did try to take pics of the ones in the old museum but i wasn't allowed, lol..

Thanks for the heads-up on the exhibit. It is indeed a mix of the St. Luis Expo as well as some items already part of the museums collection. As it turns out it wont be open to the public for a while yet but can be viewed with appointment.

It's the most extensive local exhibit I've seen, unfortunately, almost all the moro weapons have had an over-enthusiastic cleaning. On some all patina has been removed in the quest to reveal bright metal. And all that have been cleaned bear evidence of having been cleaned with (gasp) a course grit belt grinder/sander. They could all have done with a bit more tlc than they recieved. I'm sure quite a few of them lost a touch of grace from their profiles from the less than delicate cleaning. A couple are also displayed with their handles on backwards and many are now missing asang-asang and handle crests, surely stripped from the swords long ago for the precious metals and ivory. A couple of the budjak spears appear to have once been "painted" silver as well. Thankfully there are only traces of the paint left now. It would be nice if the museum was open to some tips on how to better care and display their collection. Some ren wax should have been all that was done to the pieces. The visayan swords are in much better shape (and are of a good cross section of the vast variety) and there are a couple of unusual pieces there. Certainly worth the trip.

But yes, to answer your question, I am certain all but a couple of blades in the moro collection there would display a piled or laminated blade construction from non-homogenous steels given a proper cleaning and etch.

The exhibit of the 1904 specimens at the Phil National Museum has been taking some time to open. For some reason, prep work has been quite show. I learned about it a year ago and thereafter visited in Oct 2007 to chekout the on-and-off prep work. Noticed some errors in the display (e.g. inverted Tinggian shield, etc.) and humbly pointed it out to the staff who were glad to correct them. Indeed, the exhibit would be something worth visiting. By the way, I've been given the opportunity by the museum curator to photograph and document the weapons in the museum inventory and hope to be able to share (publish) these for everyone in the future. Meanwhile, I've been preparing to complete an appropriate photo studio/equipment set-up for this purpose :)

I forgot to mention ...

Paolo, I am optimistic that we in the private sector can do a lot to support the Phil National Museum (PNM) , especially in the area of inventory management, preservation and storage. A parallel goal I had in mind was to provide PNM the digitial images of its weapons inventory, which the institution can use for their electronic database. This is pro-bono work. As you could imagine, there are many other areas where we can help. We can probably work with the other museum volunteers to ren wax those blades :) I'll be the first one to donate 2 liters.

That's a good idea Nonoy.

I'm very glad to hear that at least half of the Bandholtz collection found its way home . :)

Bertha soon Ron . :D
Maybe a run East is in order . ;)

The middle kris you show pretty much throws out the pointy luks being a recent development theory . :D

Rick

Rick you make a good point, though most of the pointy luk ones I have seen were later. That is why other things must be taken into account in determining age as well which I see on this piece. One attribute alone is not enough of course.

Nonoy I look forward to more pictures.

Here is a pretty good slightly pointy luk, overcleaned by a previous owner. :shrug:

Agreed. There is quite a bit of work to be done. Good to know there are others interested in doing this kind of thing. The museum could use a a hand with adding some information to the displays, i'm not the "expert" to do it, but the information found in this forum alone could really take the exhibit up a few notches.

another moro display
 

There is also an on-going exhibit at the Yuchenco Museum on "SULU". 5 Moro armors, several lantakas and maybe 15 moro swords (all with ivory pommels). The brass armor with arabic inscriptions, which is the subject of one of the threads, is on display.

Wonderful! I would love to see this exhibit.

The Moro armor with the inscription is copper, not brass. I have held the piece.

moro armor
 

Bill,

Yes, you are right. The moro armor with inscriptions is copper.

Perhaps some of you more learned Moro collectors can clear something up for me. Do we really know that it was the custom to etch and darken kris blades back in the day or is this just a more modern "tradition" started by collectors who wanted to see the laminated patterns in their kris? I keep trying to find old photos of Moros with there weapons out so i can see for myself, but i have not come across any that clearly show this. Spunjer shows us these examples which are supposedly untouched since their collection in 1900 and these blades are shiny. Anyone have any photos that can prove Moros darkened their blades? Anyone have any old (or even new) written evidence? Just wondering. :shrug:

In Crossing Sulu Seas , Cecil's video they show the pattern being brought out in a Barong with lime juice after forging . :shrug:

Yes. i remember that, but what year was that film made. I am wondering more about 19th century kris and before.
To make an Indo keris comparison, it would appear that from examining Javanese keris that were collected in the first encounters with the Dutch that these keris were polished in a similar way to what we might know as a Balinese style. At some point this tradition changed in Jawa and the deeper etched look came into style. So, does this segment in Sulu Seas really give us any solid evidence that earlier Moros also darkened their blades? :shrug:

Here's a pic of a Kampilan blade with a stable untouched patina . :shrug:

As an observation; I would think that mirror bright blades would be a detriment in ambush and stealth type combat .

interesting point, david.
in that collection i saw, not one showed any type of pattern. matter of fact, the collection was kept "western style", in that it was left untouched.
perhaps not mirrored finish but rather just as is...

rick,

dam, would love to hit some real surf right about now, lol.
as far as the pointy luks, that was my impression when i saw this kris.
here are some close ups:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r/c5ab6b55.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...r/39dd8f07.jpg

Oh my !
That is really nice work Ron .

Thanks for your example Rick as well as your close-ups Ron.
I'm not sure that the Kampilan pic isn't just darkened from age rather than intentionally. That's what i'd like to know for sure.
Nice kris Ron. :)

Very nice, Ron!

Magellan didn't fare to well in the surf.......
:eek:

No, he definitely kooked out Bill .
Rule number one :
Don't tick off the locals . ;) :D

LOLZ!

Did anyone see Sunny Garcia chase Neco out of the water during the '07 Pipe Masters. Talk about ticking off the locals. :eek:

Ps. where are these tourist shops ? I like to shop around there. :D :D :D
Do they have dayak items as well ;)

Hello David,

Thanks for bringing this up.

Yes, I also would like to see some photographic evidence from the late 19th or early 20th century. I'm not keeping my breath though since (light) staining of blades is hard enough to photograph nowadays and obviously much less likely to get picked up accidentally with antique photography equipment.

I don't think these qualify as evidence. Maybe these blades were not touched once they reached the US collection/museum. However, there was plenty of time to "clean up" the blades on the voyage back home. An officer had enough bored soldiers at hand to set up a cleaning party... :shrug:

Your best bet would be to locate ethnographic collections which were acquired while the old kris tradition was still alive and where the collecting of weapons as well as other artifacts was done by scientists rather than by military officers. I doubt wether the early (pre-Span.-Am. war) US expeditions to the Philippines would qualify - maybe someone can elucidate how they were organized and carried out?

The northern keris are often only etched rather than stained with warangan. Thus, all keris were routinely etched (and often stained). IMHO this makes it pretty likely that kris (keris sundang) were traditionally etched, too.

Regards,
Kai

David, I got this kampilan from a source totally ignorant of its origin .
This blade is original in its finish; IMO any staining would be from age or use only . :)

I've got a pair of black Katins ........ ;) :D

I wouldn't expect to be able to clearly see a pattern, but photo equiptment from the turn of the century was certainly advanced enough to be able to see if the blade was shiny or darkened. It would all depend on if the photograph was a reasonable distance from a drawn blade


I not only follow your logic, but tend to agree with it. I am not necessarily presenting the argument that blades weren't etched, just looking for evidence of it. :)
My point about Javanese keris once receiving a Balinese style polish with it's etching was only to show that traditions can change over the years. It would be nice if we could determine with some certainty if etching blades dark was indeed always the tradition. :shrug: