[kai]

Since Japanese blades are often of such quality that they attract "these are the best blades in the whole world" fanboyism, it shouldn't be too surprising to see similar for Moro swords. Of course, one also needs some ignorance of the quality of other people's excellent swords

I'm with Timo. For every excellent katana there were dozens of average examples produced and a considerable amount of rather crappy katana blades...

The same can be found for many other cultures all across the globe.

That said, there are Luzon and Visayan blades with that same level of quality. What do these people compare? Are they comparing superb 19th century Moro blades with post WW2 tourist bolos? I know I haven't been impressed by the average quality of the post-WW2 Moro kris (including tourist specials).

And there certainly are also antique Moro kris of rather poor workmanship, too. Not everbody can afford top notch craftsmanship, in any culture.

Is it just the magic of "Moro"? (Note that a significant part of arnis/escrima/kali is marketed as "Moro", at least implicitly, with practitioners posing for photos with kris or barong in hand, despite this family of martial arts being historically anti-Moro.)

Some of the displayed ignorance is really sad!

The Lumad, the Visayans and some of the communities of southern Luzon actually had to literally fend off the Moro raiders for centuries; it was them rather than the Spaniards who stood their ground!

A considerable part of the Moro economy was based on a predatory life style; raiders sure appreciate high quality "tools" and also have the means to spend considerable amounts for their blades. I certainly would not be surprised if any of the Moro peoples were shown to having had higher quality blades on average than, for example, Visayan communities. However, it does not follow that high-end Moro blades surpassed high-end Visayan blades. And whatever quality the blades of each side might have had, the outcomes over much of the historic time were not necessarily in favor of the Moro, despite their undeniable warrior skills...

Regards,
Kai