Sorry for the bad picture. I had lighting issues and was more interested in presenting the text. When I looked at the originals with a jeweler's loop 526 appeared to have a Indonesian or Sumatran style pamor. 528 had a cloudy line down the longitudinal center of the blade with a light towards the cutting edge and a dark side towards the spine. I can't tell if it is a lamination mark or a differential temper.
Thank you all for explaining the ancestry of these weapons. Am I correct in assuming that they occupied similar places in the relative martial traditions as heavy choppers? I would imagine that given proximity these are cultures that had some contact with each other. I have been noticing that posted examples have very little edge damage. Does this mean that there was little blade to blade contact in this martial arts system, i.e. no or few parries, or are surviving examples ones that did not see use?
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