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Old 13th February 2022, 03:53 AM   #14
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,992
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Personally I can see nothing at all wrong with this keris.

It is what it is, and what it is , is the keris of an ordinary man.

That ordinary man added a little bit of bling, something he could afford. I don't like the blingy little cubics --- if that's what they are --- but the man who put them there did, and as such they are a legitimate comment on the society from which the keris comes.

Yes, the selut has clearly not been made specifically for this keris, but it is a fact of life that ordinary men buy ordinary fittings in an ordinary pasar at ordinary prices, this is because they have ordinary incomes.

The hilt itself needs some minor repair. Jean has suggested a way of doing this, I would do something similar, but I'd use jabung to do it, which is what would be used in its place of origin.

Too much fiddling with original artefacts by people who do not understand the acceptable parameters in the societies from which these artefacts come eventually results in artefacts that are no longer representative of those societies, but rather of the tastes and standards of people who have never been near the originating societies.

It is a decent, representative keris, accept it for what it is.
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