Junggayan Kris
 

whoooo boy! this one went off the richter scale last night. i already had plans on what worldly possession i was ready to liquidate to pay for it, but still, it passed my high bid like a 2 hour late amtrak:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=6524686271

it was nice, tho. junggayan with appears to be silver discs all over, anting-anting/agimat on the blade and also what appears to be a nice pattern (like rsword's) lamination in the fuller. the base of the ferrule looks like brass, and it looks like it has silver braids around it. the handle is a mystery. congrats, oriental-arms...

I worked on a similar hilt last year - the pommel was large ivroy with silver pins all over it in a similar style. I was to replace some missing gild brass and silver rings. This one is a good piece. Not my style of pommel, but the rest is nice. The way prices have been going, I think this is a fair market value for this piece, especially since everything looks complete. I could even see this going higher with an original scabbard. Thanks for bringing this up - I misssed it.

What a beauty !
It could have been a Saturday night sleeper in the good old days . <sigh>
I was in there but only as a fruitless gesture .
I was not going to let someone walk off with that piece for under $500.00 . :D

Well, it looks like at least 3 of our forumites were interested in this kris, with at least 2 willing to go well over $1000 for it. The obvious drawing points are the beautiful ivory jungayan and the nice talismanic blade engravings, but i'm not so sure even at this point that i would be willing to call this "fair" market value for this piece, though, as always, i guess that is determined by the collector. But seeing this piece, even without a scabbard, going for this kind of money breaks the heart of this poor (i refer to $s) collector. Especially given the low quality of the photographs. But Artzi has a good eye and i am sure he saw something that really drew his attention. Hopefully he will post some better pics when he receives the piece.

Never underestimate Artzi -- his eye is as good as it gets.

He told me at Timonium this year that he has made mistakes over the years (haven't we all :eek:) but I doubt this is one of them. Somehow I think Artzi's "mistakes" would probably be a good deal for most of us. :rolleyes: :D

For a dealer, the art is in the buying, not the selling.

I hope he will put up some pictures of a few of his recent acquisitions.

Ian.