Adam, we can see a place on the blade where the pamor has separated from something, if that something is not a core or the remnant of an inserted edge, then what is it?
It might be a layer of iron that the pamor was laid onto, but when we find this type of construction we virtually always find a layer of steel between the two layers of iron.
Much of the original pamor motif has been clipped at the blade edges, this indicates that the blade was originally quite a bit wider than it is now, this decrease in width can also be guessed at because of the unbalanced pawakan (overall visual impression). One of the things that is done during normal blade maintenance is that the edges of a blade are filed to get rid of the little ragged edge pieces, over time the blade narrows.
In my opinion, & based upon what I believe I can see, I think it is very likely that this blade definitely did have a cutting edge. A blade with this pamor & made for purely dress or decorative purposes would have been made in the 20th century, I tend to think that this blade was made quite a bit earlier than 20th century.
There are a number of ways that a cutting edge can be inserted into a blade forging, the most common that we find in Javanese blades is an interlocking “V”. This technique seems to be mostly found in blades from the Second Mataram era.
Ivory.
By & large I do not fiddle around with ivory, about the most I ever do is rub a bit of baby oil into it. I was once advised by a very dedicated collector of ivory that the best oil to rub into ivory is nose oil, so we stroke our noses, then rub the resude of oil from the nose onto the ivory. Regrettably my nose is not large & impressive enough to supply sufficient oil for all my ivories.
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