[A. G. Maisey]

My problem is this David:- I have spent too much time in Jawa, and the standards of the people there have influenced the way I think, this when combined with my accounting background does mean I think in a different way to that of collectors who are outside Javanese society.

The keris is really only the blade, the wilah, all the items of dress are just that:- dress. As with old clothes, keris dress should be replaced when it is shabby, damaged, or out of style.

Up until about the mid to late 1990's nobody in Solo valued older keris dress, but then keris collecting took off, some say in response to the economic woes of Indonesia at the time, and the local dealers and collectors began to realise that collectors in the rest of the world could value old keris dress much more highly than the keris itself. They did not understand this way of thinking, but they did understand that older dress, even if shabby and damaged could be worth big money. That was when the value of old or unusual keris dress escalated.

This keris we're talking about, and particularly its problematic pendok would be solved quite simply in Solo:- the old pendok would be scrapped and a new copy made. Much easier to do that than fiddle around trying to fix something that will never be like new anyway, no matter what you do to it, and in terms of respect to the keris itself, far preferable to giving it a bodgied up overcoat. One pays respect by giving a keris new dress, not by repairing old.

As regrettable as it may be to some of us, the keris is a vehicle for investment, this is the base reason for the existence of the Solonese tangguh system. As with any form of investment, it is not at all wise to over capitalise. This applies as much to a keris as it does to a house.

We can always make an emotional decision, and I've done this too, but too much emotion can cost money, objective decisions are less costly in the long run.