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Old 15th December 2023, 07:57 PM   #6
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,704
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Gotta sleep sometime Marius, Saturday, 6.37am here, what time where you are?

The blade is old, pre-1900, how much older than that i cannot say from a photo, & maybe cannot say at all, but it was definitely made as a keris, by a pande, & for a Balinese man.

The dress is early for this type of keris, post 1960, pre 1980. I'm guessing here, I know the story of the origination of this dress style, but it is difficult to put a precise commencement date on it. Certainly the style came about because of the tourist flood, and that did not really begin until late 1950's. There were tourists into Bali from not long after the puputans, I think around 1920 would be a good start date, by the 1930's it was certainly on the international bucket list, then there was WWII, the Merdeka struggle, things were still pretty fragile into the 1960's --- tourists generally like to stay away from places where thousands of people are being put to death in very bloody ways.

The consolidated opinion of most informed people seems to be that the last "good year" in South Bali was 1982. After that Bali began to become the Disneyland for adults --- which it now is.

So, dress, 1960 - 1980.

The quality of the carving is pedestrian, not done by an 8 year old child, it was done by an experienced carver, but he was in a hurry.

This type of keris has now become a valid collectable in its own right, and this one is a pretty fair example of the style. What it is not is a fully traditional style that could be worn by a Balinese man.
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