Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

A. G. Maisey · 25th November 2012, 09:23 PM

I find this recent profusion of toli-toli very interesting.

By about age 30 I had accumulated over 3000 keris. These were not all beautiful, perfect complete keris, but keris in every stage of disrepair and damage and I worked on a lot of them and returned them to something approximating fairly acceptable keris. By the time I was about 40 I'd reduced that 3000+ to no more than 40 pretty decent keris that were all original and in good condition, and this was the foundation for my present collection. During my thirties I put a lot of keris through auctions, both in Australia and in the UK --- this was long before ebay had ever been thought of.

Since the early 1970's I have been buying keris in Indonesia and from other countries --- UK, USA, Europe. My present personal collection is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 300 keris.

Now, the reason I find the present profusion of toli-toli to be so interesting is that I have only ever owned two keris with toli-toli, and in both cases those toli-toli were rather simple red cords, not beautiful examples of the jewellers art.

It is rather pleasing to see this revival of the production of toli-toli that originally were probably owned by only a handful of nobles, this gives most of us the opportunity to add exquisite pieces to our collections, pieces that 50 years ago we could never even have dreamed of possessing.

25th November 2012, 09:23 PM	#6
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,714	I find this recent profusion of toli-toli very interesting. By about age 30 I had accumulated over 3000 keris. These were not all beautiful, perfect complete keris, but keris in every stage of disrepair and damage and I worked on a lot of them and returned them to something approximating fairly acceptable keris. By the time I was about 40 I'd reduced that 3000+ to no more than 40 pretty decent keris that were all original and in good condition, and this was the foundation for my present collection. During my thirties I put a lot of keris through auctions, both in Australia and in the UK --- this was long before ebay had ever been thought of. Since the early 1970's I have been buying keris in Indonesia and from other countries --- UK, USA, Europe. My present personal collection is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 300 keris. Now, the reason I find the present profusion of toli-toli to be so interesting is that I have only ever owned two keris with toli-toli, and in both cases those toli-toli were rather simple red cords, not beautiful examples of the jewellers art. It is rather pleasing to see this revival of the production of toli-toli that originally were probably owned by only a handful of nobles, this gives most of us the opportunity to add exquisite pieces to our collections, pieces that 50 years ago we could never even have dreamed of possessing.