[David]

Originally Posted by BluErf

Anyhow, it is difficult for carvers from outside a culture to attain the 'air tangan' (roughly speaking, the subtle sense of aesthetics) of that culture. So these carvers would have a hard time fooling collectors who have been immersed in the art form. However, that said, most people do not belong to that category, so people do often get 'tricked' by these imposters.

And it is open knowledge that such forums are used to 'test water' for some of these works to see if they are good enough to 'pass'. As a collector who loves the tajong form, it is difficult - if we don't speak up, the 'wrong' form/imposters become accepted as the norm over time; if we challenge, we run the risks of enhancing the fakers' knowledge in coming up with better hilts. So maybe the compromise is to point out what looks suspicious, and leave it at that. More intimate knowledge would probably have to be passed to known collectors, privately.

Well said Kai Wee.