The dat file with only 19 keys actually works loading with the bitcoin client. Is there anyway to check if it contains any money without having to sync the bitcoin client?
You could export those private keys. I can't remember if pywallet will export the address along with private key but if it doesn't you could use something like bitcoinaddress (offline) to generate the address from those private keys. Then just check the balance of the 19 addresses on a site like blockchain.info.