[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Ariel, the way you put it is certainly the way it would be seen by somebody who did not have a Javanese based understanding of the keris.

I'm going to try to clarify this seeming conundrum a little, but I cannot speak for all others here, so I'm guessing that there will be some remarks additional to mine.

Groneman wrote in the 19th century, and at that time collectors in the western world of Europe and the UK were flat out collecting exotic Eastern edged weaponry, and a lot of this eastern edged weaponry was still brand new at that time. It didn't seem to matter to those 19th century gentlemen whether the peshkabz, khanjar , tulwar, or keris was old or new, the main thing was it was exotic, and they wanted to drape their libraries with exotic Eastern weaponry.

At that time---19th century--- these swords and daggers were still being used to hack up the soldiers of Good Queen Vicki. They were current ethnographic weaponry.

I recently had the opportunity to closely examine a number of very early provenanced keris in European museums. Keris which had provenance going back in some cases to around 1600 or before. Some of those keris were still in pristine, just off the work-bench condition. These 300 year old plus keris originally belonged to people like the Medicis and the Danish Royal family. Seems they had no problem with having brand new keris in the curiosity cabinets.

The current preference of many weapons collectors for "old" can probably be explained by the fact that the weapons they collect relate to a past age, thus they are antique collectors with a preference for weaponry, rather than weapons collectors per se.

Fast forward to 2012. In Jawa and other keris bearing societies the keris is still current ethnographic weaponry, just as those other sharp pointy things were a couple of hundred years ago. However, they seldom get used to hack up pale skinned visitors these days. It is my experience that although people in western societies who collect keris do not discriminate against keris from the current era, many do have a preference for older keris. Most collections that I know of are a mixture of old keris and new keris, with the criteria usually being personal liking for a piece, followed by personal affordability.

But here is the problem with good, old keris:- there quite simply were never very many of them, and with the passing of time they have become less and less, and the truly old, truly good keris that are left today are almost all locked into a closed circle of elite collectors. When they change hands for actual money, the sums involved are frightening. Vastly more than most collectors in the Western world could, or would pay for a keris. So, if a collector wants a really good keris that is artistically pleasing he does not have any option other than to buy current era production, similarly if he wants perfect examples of complex pamor he must buy current era production; if he wants complicated dhapur, he must buy current era production.

On the other hand, if he is satisfied with worn, second rate keris that have somewhere between no and very little artistic excellence, provided they are old, then he can satisfy his collecting needs for "old", without a lot of difficulty.

Most people do appreciate good, old keris. It doesn't matter if those people live in Jawa or in a Western society, but good old keris are few and far between and they cost. Bigtime.

It is not accurate to say that keris collectors do not take any account of the concept of "old". They do, but the way in which they think of "old" is related to tangguh, not to time as you understand it. Javanese indigenous history is a mixture of probable fact and definite myth. This history is recorded in court histories called babads, it is often very difficult to determine where fact stops and myth or legend begins. These babads are related to the era of the ruler and kingdom in which they were produced, so if we were to ask a Javanese keris expert how "old" a particular keris was, and that keris was late 16th century from Central Jawa, the Javanese keris expert would not say "late 16th century, Central Jawa", he would say "Mataram Senopaten", provided the characteristics matched his idea of what a Mataram Senopaten keris looked like.

This system of classification runs all the way back 8th, 9th, 10th century, but here is the catch:- the further back in time you go, the less likely the believed age is to accurately relate to the actual time passed. Eventually you get back to a mythical era and location, and this is the ultimate test of the true believer.

Many, if not most Javanese keris experts take the supposed age based on tangguh with a grain of salt, but the precise age is not relevant, what is relevant is the supportable classification, and a part of the classification has to do with relative age. This means that an old tangguh classification will always relate to an old keris, and a new tangguh classification will always relate to a more recent keris, but the relationship is relative, not truly able to be defined in terms of years as you understand a year.

The Javanese and Balinese traditional mind still functions as a magic world-view in traditional matters.

So age is important, its just that it is thought of in a different way to the way in which you think of age.

Recent keris do not compete with old keris, but if a collector wants excellence then he really has no choice but to buy recent. When he does this he is collecting ethnographic art, which is as valid right now as it was 300 years ago when the Medicis were also collecting ethnographic art --- amongst other things, mainly power and money..

I apologise for the length of this post. I do hope you managed to get through it and that it has perhaps provided a slightly more rational position from which to consider the study and/or collection of keris.