I very rarely look at auctions these days, the ones that take place out of Australia make purchase too expensive because of shipping & handling costs, the ones that take place in Australia very rarely have things on offer that interest me.
However, I did bid in one auction in Australia that took place a few months ago. I knew the collection that was on offer, in fact, I knew it very well. The descriptions were not too bad, not good, but not nearly as bad as some of the European and USA auction descriptions that I have seen.
But as with the gold keris mentioned above, metal identification was a real problem for them:- mamas was described as silver, gilt silver was described as gold on brass, and suasa was described as copper.
It is impossible to determine the metal that has been used in a keris or other S.E. Asian weapon unless one is fully conversant with materials used in this area, and can actually handle the item --- well, impossible in the absence of an examination by a suitably qualified professional.
I think that there are several lessons to be learnt from these inadequate auction listings, and this is not the first time this subject has been mentioned in this Forum.
Firstly, if we are selling through auction, the auction house must agree to the use of data that the owner supplies.
Secondly, if we are buying we should try to the utmost to actually handle the object we are going to bid on.
Thirdly, if we cannot inspect in person, and we are dealing with people who are not specialist in the field that includes the items being sold, we should think very carefully before bidding past the value of the lowest possibility. In other words, if something is listed as silver, but we know from experience that it is most likely to be mamas, we should limit our bid to a mamas value.
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