David, thank you for sharing your lovely and unique example. One thing I notice on this one, that I have also noticed on a lot of other Keris, is there are a fair bit of scratches on the surface of the blade. They mostly run horizontal to the blade as well as across the ridge line. I see this in a lot of Keris and have wondered about it. Is it scabbard wear? You wouldn't think the direction of the scratches would be horizontal. Are they grind marks from manufacture that was never fully polished out? Does this indicate a particular level of quality? The more refined the polish the better the pamor is going to show I would think. Or, is it simply from decades of being handled? Blades being laid around without the scabbard, on top of other blades, etc. nothing any of us would do of course
but could answer what causes this kind of surface abrasions. Just curious.