Moro kris mystery

[kai]

this is probably a post WW2 kris, but i don't think that necessarily makes it a "repro". Is the blade edge-sharp?

With repro I didn't meant a completely non-functional sword which was never sharpened - 5mm is enough to allow for some cutting ability, for sure. A light etch may tell wether the blade was tempered at all.

That being said, I tend to think of blades as repros if they haven't been produced by the traditional bladesmithing techniques. For example monosteel (possibly from leaf springs) just hammered into shape or even mere stock removal.

I have one kris which I believe to be of Lumad origin which has a (separate) gangya over 10mm thick. And the same is also true for all my Moro kris. A much thinner gangya seems to imply non-adherance to traditional bladesmithing standards or possibly ignorance by the smith (something you routinely see in examples coming out of Luzon, for example). OTOH, it may be difficult to apply objective criteria to differentiate between a successive devolution of bladesmithing skills/knowledge (which obviously happened inside Moro culture, too) and applying non-traditional techniques...

Regards,
Kai