Alan, Alam, of course one should appreciate gifts as they are. But IP himself seems to be rather eager to get estimated value (also on the swordforum), it wouldn’t be my first reaction as well, but then again my sister only brought me a t-shirt from her latest trip: )
I do however find it a bit odd that one (or ones sister) expects to find “treasures” in typical tourist areas. Yogjakarta “guards” do give regular keris-standing-performances and make additional income by selling keris to tourists (or to people that live in Jakarta for 10 years but travel with a translator (see IPs first post)). “Mister wanna buy keris?” is not an uncommon question for visitors in this area, some of the guards can even count perfectly in more then 10 languages, so go figure.
Maybe more experienced travelers are aware that you can’t easily find Faraotreasures in front of an Egyptian tourist station, or Incagold in your Yucatan resort, priceless ruby at the entrance of Thai temples. But for those that seriously think you can still find a priceless keris offered by a Jogya keraton guard, please think again.
I don’t want to rub anything in, but think its good to have some reality check.
Alan mentioned that it might be a keris of the Nginden class. I guess it’s not recommended to fuel any speculation in this direction. First it obviously isn’t anywhere near a Nginden keris and second, the guard, for sure, would have sold it for real prices if it was (they are being traded for al least 2500). I sympathize with IP (or his sister) having had one illusion already, so no need to create another one.
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