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Old 12th February 2008, 11:13 PM   #3
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,992
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Yeah David, there are a lot of them around, and they were put together specifically for tourists, which makes them a genuine tourist item.

The early ones used genuine old blades, which were sometimes pretty fair. I think it might have been during the 1980's that the pieces of acid-etched flat-iron started to appear, I don't seem to remember that stuff from the 1960's and 1970's.

The etched flat-iron, the old genuine blades, the current era better quality blades, are only something to hang the carving on, which is what the tourists buy--- all they really want is a holiday memento to hang on the wall, and 99.9% of these people couldn't tell the difference between a real blade and etched flat-iron anyway.

You're right of course, there are examples of this type that are infinitely worse than this one, but there are a few that are of superior quality workmanship. This one is just somewhere in the middle, which in my opinion makes it pretty poor.

If you're committed to it Fernando, you could make a gonjo for it, and try to do something about reasonable dress, but depending on how much you need to pay for this keris, that might not be economically viable, as it could finish up costing more than its worth.
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