Kris of Sumatra?

[Johan van Zyl]

My take is that a worthy keris is a combination of genuineness and true craftmanship, together with the cultural canny of the empu, so that the symbolics are correctly understood and presented. I know this little "definition" might invite lots of comment, but my point is that once a collector has seen & handled very many good kerisses, he forms a norm in his mind. All kerisses he subsequently sees, are compared to that norm. It works that way for a good hunting rifle, or Roman coinage, if I may use two very different interests.

When I saw Corrado's pics of that attention-grabbing scabbard, my first impression was: "Hey, I don't have the skill to sculpt a gambar like that!" But my second thought was: "The guys are going to shoot this dress, and that blade, down in flames!" And that's what happened - good naturedly, of course. Bully for Corrado that he knew what he was getting. And his pics were very good - thanks for that.

Interestingly, in coinage we have this saying: You don't study a fake to learn what the real thing looks like. You study the real thing to get to know what a fake looks like!

(Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that Corrado's wall hanger is a fake. I don't think very many keris replicas are made with the intent to deceive. If that were the case, they could be called fakes. - my two cents worth.)

Johan