G'day Alan,
When I started out collecting, I go for a quality old keris. Quality comes first since if we screwed up on its age, we still have quality. Nowadays, quality and age still plays a role, but there's a bit of an addition. I just keep what I like; for a keris may have all the quality and age, but if i didn't like it, I wont keep it. What others think about it does not matter since I'm the one that will be looking at it day after day. Well, keris collecting had started to sound like living with our significant other isn't it?
I found both yours and Rick's keris very handsome looking keris and I love them both. My questions are:
1. How do we measure quality? For instance, your keris have a different ratio of sorsoran width to its length when compared to Rick's keris. The sekar kacang is also different. (It's entirely different probably) How does the shape of the ricikan justifies quality?
2. If we take tangguh as age, how can we apply the quality measures to keris with different tangguh? If we take tangguh as style of keris, can we still use the same parameters?
My questions are probably circling around the same thing. It reflects how confused I am right now.
Best regards,
Rasdan