The new ones are not rare, and you can buy really cheap ones for almost nothing --- good ones cost, sometimes cost big when we are talking top quality and premium materials, but the old ones seem to have been used up.
By "used up" I mean that they have broken, or been lost and the quite small existing stock has been re-distributed to existing old keris. I've often had old keris in my hands that didn't have any mendak, or had a junk modern one, or if an old mendak was fitted, it was crushed and broken.
Over a 50 year period I've simply bought every halfway decent old mendak that I've come across. That's why I have so many. Not "collection", more "accumulation".
Many old mendak were pretty fragile. The iron ones, cast bronze and cast brass were not fragile, but there were very few of those, however, the fabricated ones would in many cases have crushed and broken if the blade hit a bone when thrust. The hollow East Jawa/Madura ones you can crush between your fingers.
|