If such keris are common in Kelantan and Terengganu you could have fooled me. Fact is its even pretty unusual by Sulawesi standards - which is what makes the piece so special in the first place. Had I seen the blade bare I would have guessed Northeastern Sumatra. Here's a piece thats similar but dressed in the NE Sumatran style.
Photo stolen
from Artzi.
And another from S. Sumatra with a similar blade form but somewhat different, lower quality besi.
That said, the dress on BluErf's keris is unmistakably Sulawesi.
And incidentally - the steel on this piece's blade is quite similar.
Straight keris blades are ubiquitous across the Malay world and are sometimes pretty hard to place. Complicating matters is the fact that many of the cheap Javanese trade blades sold across the archipelago for hundreds of years were straight blades. That said though this blade is clearly no trade blade. the hexagonal cross section is typically Bugis - whether Sulawesi or Straits - as is the besi. To top it all off - the quality of workmanship of Blu's example is certainly one of the best, if not the best of this sort that I've ever seen. None of the examples shown above even comes close. A very fine, certainly high status blade. To denigrate such a piece as "common" and "cheap" (I'm assuming that's what "not much priced" means) is flat ignorant!
And for the record, I've spent a hell of a lot of time trying to figure out the identifying characteristics of the keris of the Northeastern Peninsula but if there is anyone on this forum who can prove to me that such keris were common I'll be damned impressed
