Question about finish.

[David R]

Cleaning up the little blade that turned out to be a meed chai-tong, I found myself cursing the guy who put the file marks in the blade. Then I looked more closely at the pitting, which was not rust after all but forge marks, and the question arose....how good was the finish in the first place.
On a lot of SEA and Fillipean stuff I see here, the forging and shaping of the blade is superb, but the finish rough, although the mounts are very nice indeed. So , is the roughness due to age and use, or were these never that polished in the first place.
I am not refering here to pamor work, that is off in a different direction entirely.

[Andrew]

Post pics, please. The "finish", especially on older working blades, was not always finely polished on these.

[Nathaniel]

David, Yes, it is very common for the older Thai blades to have forge flaws, and file marks...they often do not do have a high polish. If you see a finely polished SEA sword it's often because a collector has polished it themselves or had it professionally polished and etched to bring out the temper line.

[David R]

Andrew, will do what I can, I don't have a working camera at the moment, but have a friend who does.
Nathaniel, thanks for that, I wondered. I suppose we see the temper line and laminations as features to be brought out, and to them they were just practical solutions to make a sharp blade.
But it does seem funny, the forge work and shaping is so good, and the carved hilts downright beautyfull.
And then you look at Chinese, Japanese and Indo-Persian stuff where the finish of the blade is paramount!