[A. G. Maisey]

That Knives'90 article was written in 1988 or '89. At that time I was very heavily involved in custom knife making, mostly making damascus blades for other makers in both Australia and the USA. One of my big selling points was that I almost never signed a blade, so there are a lot of my blades out there with somebody else's name on them. Of course I was also involved with keris, Pak Parman was still with us, and I felt that as a part of my committment to keris culture I should try to spread awareness of the keris into the world outside Jawa.

This was the late 1980's --- no internet, a few keris study societies in Jawa but virtually nowhere else, venues to introduce the keris to a wider audience were gunshows, Indonesian cultural fests, and the custom knife community. I did gunshows from the mid 1970's, I participated in Indonesian cultural displays and events, Knives '90 was an attempt to introduce the keris to the custom knife fraternity. It worked reasonably well.

The article I wrote for Knives '90 was very, very basic. It was aimed at a readership who could be expected to know absolutely nothing at all about the keris.

The title of the published article was the invention of the editor --- you should have seen his first two attempts!! My title was :- "An Introduction to the Keris". Apparently my title was not sexy enough.


The video I mentioned was produced by a gentleman named Kieth Spencer. He and his wife visited Jawa in about 2000 --- I forget the exact date, but it was around the time when the troubles were in full swing. Kieth is a wheel in the Australian knife collecting community.His wife Joan has an interest in keris, and I understand occasionally visits this forum. I have already emailed him and asked if the video is still available for sale. I do not expect a fast response.