The buying thing can be a problem Nik, and I probably understand this as well as, or maybe better than, most, because I sell from pictures, even though I almost never buy from pics. I do not buy from pics because I do not need to, I sell from pics because other people do need them to buy from.
But buying a keris from a picture is very, very different to understanding that keris, and in my opinion, the understanding can never come from a picture, no matter how good that image may be.
Incorrect attempts at cleaning and restoration can be regrettable, but so can failure to give sympathetic care to a keris, or anything else for that matter. A long time back I bought a box of keris, about 20 or 30 of them, mostly Bugis style, that looked as if they had spent the previous 100 years in the bottom of a Dutch dyke*. But they all restored well.
*I am writing Standard English.
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