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Old 16th December 2023, 04:33 PM   #11
David
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
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As has been already pointed out, this is a fairly decent Balinese keris blade, but it is housed in dress that is aimed directly at Western tourism. You can count yourself fortunate that such a decent blade is in this dress, because usually they are occupied by old and worn out poor quality keris or even worse, the dreaded stock removal garbage with the fake batik pamor.
As Alan mentioned, while it would be nice to give this keris proper dress, as no self-respecting Balinese man wear such an ensemble in public, the could be difficult from you position living in Germany. And as also pointed out, some people do find this tourist dress to be somewhat collectable and this is a very classic representation of that this form. Yes, it is true that your hilt is carved better than many of these tourist models are, but it is still clearly in that category. If this were mine i would wash/scrub the blade well in soapy water, dry it completely and then oil it well. I would also use some wood oil on the dress and call it a day. i would image that you probably got a decent deal on this because of the style of dress.
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