6 kerises I just bought from an inherited collection

A. G. Maisey · 26th August 2021, 01:36 AM

It sometimes gets pretty difficult to tell the difference David.

There was one really very high quality, old, Balinese keris that I had --- "old", it had been in Australia for over 100 years --- that I decided to give a bit of a facelift to, and when I got to the polishing, and it was only very light, cosmetic polishing, more than half of the dark grained wood was found to be false.

This Jogja atasan looks like the real thing to me, but the bare facts are that even if it is not, it is old, and it was perfectly satisfactory to the person who originally had it made.

Sometimes the expectations and standards of collectors who are outside the originating society do not align with the standards and expectations of the people who live in that originating society.

One well known example of this is the expectation of Western World collectors that all stones used in keris ornamentation should be "natural" stones. In fact, as most experienced collectors know, it is the visual effect that is important, not whether the "stones" are natural or not.

I've got several extremely high quality Balinese keris hilts, even though the hilts might be made of silver, or silver gilt, or even 22k gold, some of the "stones" in all of those hilts, are pastes, ie glass.

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26th August 2021, 01:36 AM	#5
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,048	It sometimes gets pretty difficult to tell the difference David. There was one really very high quality, old, Balinese keris that I had --- "old", it had been in Australia for over 100 years --- that I decided to give a bit of a facelift to, and when I got to the polishing, and it was only very light, cosmetic polishing, more than half of the dark grained wood was found to be false. This Jogja atasan looks like the real thing to me, but the bare facts are that even if it is not, it is old, and it was perfectly satisfactory to the person who originally had it made. Sometimes the expectations and standards of collectors who are outside the originating society do not align with the standards and expectations of the people who live in that originating society. One well known example of this is the expectation of Western World collectors that all stones used in keris ornamentation should be "natural" stones. In fact, as most experienced collectors know, it is the visual effect that is important, not whether the "stones" are natural or not. I've got several extremely high quality Balinese keris hilts, even though the hilts might be made of silver, or silver gilt, or even 22k gold, some of the "stones" in all of those hilts, are pastes, ie glass.