What is the meaning behind this gandik type?

[Jussi M.]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

As keris become more recent we find meditating figures(puthut), buffalo, tigers, lions, manglar monggo, garudas, in fact a whole menagerie of motifs. A nice foundation for a collection could perhaps be to collect only keris with figural motifs --- what we call "picture keris".

- emphasis added -

Greetings,

this idea of concentrating ones collection focus onto "picture keris´s" only sounds good in that it would make easier to stay the course: "no picture, on the keris, I´ll pass". Thus temptations would be easier to evade as the mass to choose from would be considerably lower?

However would this be a riskier approach for the novice keris student in that there would be a higher risk of landing with a fraud than if one were to focus on the "less pictoral", more "regular", keris, pun intended? I´m talking about post original manufacture alterations provided for making the market value higher. Hallucination?

Thanks,

J.