Featured PERANAKAN SILVER BELT BUCKLE!

It’s definitely not pewter. Pewter is much more grey in colour. Maybe silver plated? It’s a really nice piece. Congratulations.

 

Pewter also doesn't take to fine casting too well, unless the maker really knows his stuff. Stamping either. Silver is a lot more ductile.

 

We'll see.

Not enough space behind the buckle to fit the leather in, or else I'd be considering it already. The only way would be to alter the entire buckle, and I don't wanna do that.

Yes, I found that out after I made the post, or I would've edited when I could.

I've been stung before on pieces similar to this, so I'm taking no chances.

 

Thanks.

I had considered silver-plate, but I don't see any evidence of wear or plating-loss.

All the research I've done says they're either silver, silver-plated brass, or just plain polished brass. But then there's always the outside chance of it being neither of those, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll find out in a couple of hours when I go and see my friend.

 

Maybe some type of fabric? Javanese and Madurese buckles were often worn on black velvet belts.
This is one from my collection:



Obviously you wouldn't need all that thick gold embroidery, that is for royals anyway. But just the general idea.

 

That's lovely!! I always told myself, if I could find a nice Peranakan belt buckle in silver, which I could actually turn into a belt, I would...one day...one day...

 

Well we have the answer:

TIN!!

 

Well since pewter is made up of mostly tin it seems your Dad was correct after all.

From Wikipedia - "Pewter is a malleable metal alloy consisting of tin (85–99%), antimony (approximately 5–10%), copper (2%), bismuth, and sometimes silver."

 

Yeah! Thank god it was cheap!!

 

Inexpensive........... it sure doesn't look cheap !!

 

Not far off from pewter then But just as beautiful as silver. Strange it doesn’t have that grey tone but rather a brassy, coppery hue.

 

I agree. Pewter is usually duller. I mean it IS, on the back...on the front, not so much.

 

It is still a well-made beauty, and it polishes up very nicely.
Good eye, Shangas' Dad.

Bangka, just off the southeast coast of Sumatra, is a famous tin island in the region. There could be a connection.
Bangka is very close to Jambi btw, where the two gents in the photo I posted were from.

 

Dad said it was either tin or pewter, given that they're the metals that Malaysia is most famous for (which is true), so I guess it makes a lot of sense. However I saw no examples made of either, when I was researching them.

 

Malay is not the same as Malaysia though. Granted, there are Malays in Malaysia, and they gave the country its name. But that doesn't mean that Malay culture is confined to Malaysia, on the contrary.
There are many theories about the origin of Malays, and questions whether they are a separate ethnic group, or a cultural group. The prevailing theory is that they are the latter, a cultural group that settled along the shores of a great part of SE Asia. The oldest known Malay cultural centres were in Sumatra, Indonesia.
The famous Malay Srivijaya kingdom (C7th-11th) had its seat in what is now Palembang in SE Sumatra. Srivijaya was known throughout Asia as a centre of Buddhist learning and pigrimage. Through Srivijaya's expansion Malay culture became 'international'.
After the fall of Srivijaya, Malay kingdoms and culture spread to Thailand, Borneo, Malaysia and Sulawesi, as well as smaller settlements along the coasts of the Indonesian islands.

To illustrate, even if you only consider Sumatra, not the other islands, you will see that Sumatra is more than twice the size of mainland Malaysia (names in Dutch):