I had debated posting about this one for a few days. We have been having a rousing discussion about it on one particular Facebook page.
I have a lot of questions about this replica dress. Who was it actually created for in the first place? If they were creating a replica (and it is a rather nicely crafted one) why not create it with a blade that more closely represents this form. AFAIK this dress generally clothed a Javanese blade. As i have heard it and as related by the auction description, these keris were originally presentation keris to vassal states form the end of the Mojopahit and most often contain Javanese blades. I don't think it is so much a matter of this blade not matching the quality of the dress as much as not matching the original style such dress generally held.
While i do think this particular keris looks nice i did question the great sum it attracted. Keep in mind that the buyer also had to pay a 25% fee to the auction house, so when all was said and done the buyer actually paid over $30,000usd for this keris. That is quite a sum for a replica. There did seem to be many bad descriptions throughout the Czerny catalog and as far as i have heard many pieces when for much lower prices than they should have because of that. But the missing piece of information on this particular item was that auction house sent out a last minute message about it (see attached below). While the catalog description used the term "gilded yellow metal" a couple of times to describe the dress apparently they discovered at the last minute that the whole thing was actually gold. I don't know how such information alluded them to begin with, but the high price was probably driven by this last minute announcement. Of course the question i would still raise is "how much weight and what carat gold"??? Was the actual material value really enough to deserve such a price tag? The photos provided were not so great, but i still have doubts that any of the "gemstones" were real. The auction house only called them "red, white and green stones".
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