ANTIQUE 16th C OLD MADURA KERIS ??????

nechesh · 7th May 2006, 11:07 PM

Hhhhmmm.....well, thanks for the pics Doecon. Unfortunately, they still aren't very good (blurry, dark) and i certainly wouldn't try to judge age from them. There does seem to be a certain amount of the type of pitting i would expect to see on artificially aged blades, but i wouldn't bet the farm that there is no real age to it. I do suspect that it is, indeed, a Madurese blade and therefore correctly, if poorly, dressed

I do find you comments on dress to be a bit off the mark. Dress is very highly regarded in Indonesian cultures and the really nice and reverred types of woods that are/were used in high quailty dress are becoming rarer and rare. Rare valuable materials are often used such as ivory which are held in very high esteem. The idea that a new owner would automatically trade out a fine quality dress for a shiny new one if that dress is in good condition just don't sound right to me at all. It would be disrespectful to the blade to leave it in damaged dress, but otherwise it would not just merely be tossed away for new.
Anyway, this is a fairly low quality blade (old or not) in a low quality dress. I would still say the new owner did alright if this is the type of keris he was looking to add to his collection. I do wonder, however, if it is advisible for you as the seller to appear on this forum to defend your description of this keris (and future auctions if they are discussed here). If there are factual discrepancies in your listings and you chose to defend them here i can assure you that the level of expertise on this forum here WILL find them and expose them. You may not find that in your best interest.

7th May 2006, 11:07 PM	#11
nechesh Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 940	Hhhhmmm.....well, thanks for the pics Doecon. Unfortunately, they still aren't very good (blurry, dark) and i certainly wouldn't try to judge age from them. There does seem to be a certain amount of the type of pitting i would expect to see on artificially aged blades, but i wouldn't bet the farm that there is no real age to it. I do suspect that it is, indeed, a Madurese blade and therefore correctly, if poorly, dressed I do find you comments on dress to be a bit off the mark. Dress is very highly regarded in Indonesian cultures and the really nice and reverred types of woods that are/were used in high quailty dress are becoming rarer and rare. Rare valuable materials are often used such as ivory which are held in very high esteem. The idea that a new owner would automatically trade out a fine quality dress for a shiny new one if that dress is in good condition just don't sound right to me at all. It would be disrespectful to the blade to leave it in damaged dress, but otherwise it would not just merely be tossed away for new. Anyway, this is a fairly low quality blade (old or not) in a low quality dress. I would still say the new owner did alright if this is the type of keris he was looking to add to his collection. I do wonder, however, if it is advisible for you as the seller to appear on this forum to defend your description of this keris (and future auctions if they are discussed here). If there are factual discrepancies in your listings and you chose to defend them here i can assure you that the level of expertise on this forum here WILL find them and expose them. You may not find that in your best interest.