All education costs money.
It is not possible to complete even kindergarten satisfactorily unless a child has parents who are able and prepared to spend money.
To gain a Phd., what is the total cost?
This dictum of education costing money holds true in any field that I can think of, and it most definitely holds true in respect of keris. My own education in the keris has cost me far more than I can count, or would want to count.
But I can remember many of the better lessons that I gained along the way. Probably the best single lesson was the exquisite keris singo barong kinatah that I bought from a very well known dealer in Jakarta in about 1974. At that time I had already collected and studied keris for more than 15 years, but my lessons in the keris had been learnt outside Indonesia, and outside the Javanese keris trade.
It took until about 1980 before I had gained sufficient knowledge to understand that the superb keris singo barong that I bought in Jakarta some years previously was in fact a total falsification. In fact, I learnt this by meeting the man who had very probably carried out the falsification, and who lived in Jln. Wates in Jogjakarta; I am quite comfortable in giving this information, as the gentleman of whom I speak left the land of the living some years ago.
Perhaps the best place to gain an education in the keris is in the market place, which means of course that our teachers will be dealers, at least in the first instance. However, perhaps the lesson taught by that dealer, will not become obvious until some later date, as was the case with the singo barong I bought during the time I was still in kindergarten.
Alternatively, there is the choice not to learn at all, but simply to believe whatever we will.
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