[Johan van Zyl]

Keris friends, I have the greatest pleasure in informing you that I have become the proud (and relieved) owner of my second KERIS! I say relieved, because I never thought I would even GET another one, taking into account where I live and what my surroundings are, i.e. non keris environment, non collector environment etc. In my town I know three collectors, and they just looked at me blankly and vigorously shook their heads when I broached the topic of the keris. The one collected war medals, the other guns and the third had a truly motley accumulation of interesting stuff.

The purpose of this first post is to put out a number of pics of my keris for you to look at. I have taken them in very bright light and have enlarged them as much as I dared for viewing clarity. If they are still lacking, I apologise. One of the pics show the keris full-length, plus the only piece of the sheath I received, the rest is AWOL. The other pics are some closeups.

Be assured that I have done a LOT of reading up since my previous thread "My Javanese Keris" was posted. Notwithstanding, I still realise that it is all book-learning and I still have virtually no hands-on experience in seeing & handling a variety of kerisses. In general, I am not ashamed to say that I have been a student all my life, and I say one life is too short to not study all the time.

One more thing: I have come across some strange keris threads in this archive, but even they served somehow to give me food for thought. And yes, I have even come across a thread by Mr Maisey stating his total disgust (my words) at that travesty they call "rap". I want to state just as vigorously that I fully agree with the gentleman! And lastly, he has said in a thread that he would like to be called Alan. In my conservative Afrikaans culture we always wait until requested to drop the "Mr". Now that I have read what he said, I will have the honour of calling him Alan.