Good to hear from you Michael and thanks for the info! I'll pick up Gardner immediately from my bookshelf!
And just did - never did take notice of these remarks. Also interesting the reference to blades with the cipher of the Dutch company (VOC) in the Raffles museum!
I have a piso podang with a laminated blade with VOC markings. It is clear the blade is very old and not a recent tourist example - I would say 150 years or more but it does sound very unlikely that the VOC would use laminated blades - the original ones have very simple steel blades.
My hypothesis is that European blades had more status and that was a reason for adding stamps that are not original to the blade to improve the status of the weapons.
Maybe something for a different thread....
The problem is there are also recent copies of these which makes the research much more diffuse.