Question about finish.

[David R]

Cleaning up the little blade that turned out to be a meed chai-tong, I found myself cursing the guy who put the file marks in the blade. Then I looked more closely at the pitting, which was not rust after all but forge marks, and the question arose....how good was the finish in the first place.
On a lot of SEA and Fillipean stuff I see here, the forging and shaping of the blade is superb, but the finish rough, although the mounts are very nice indeed. So , is the roughness due to age and use, or were these never that polished in the first place.
I am not refering here to pamor work, that is off in a different direction entirely.