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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Shangas, post: 1220102, member: 360&quot;]It&#039;s an interesting belt, but I&#039;m not convinced it&#039;s Peranakan. For one thing I can&#039;t see enough of the details to be sure of what it is, or what it isn&#039;t. Peranakan belts are usually made of either solid silver, or solid gold, or silver-plate. Sometimes they&#039;re even made of brass, but I&#039;ve never seen more than one or two of those. The vast majority were silver, followed by gold, then silver-plate, in my experience. </p><p><br /></p><p>Peranakan belts are famous for their &quot;tingkat&quot; (&quot;layers&quot;) of silver. You had rows of little silver pieces shaped like diamonds, or flowers, or circles, etc, and they&#039;re all linked together, one after another - like a chain. </p><p><br /></p><p>Then you have another chain. And another. And another. And they&#039;re all laid alongside each other in rows. Then they&#039;re all linked together, a bit like chainmail. And the rows of little decorative silver pieces form the body of the belt. Each row is one &quot;tingkat&quot;. The more rows of silver, the more expensive and intricate the belt is. Usually it&#039;s three, or four. But I have seen examples of five, or even six rows. But obviously - more rows = more silver = more expensive. So most people stuck with just 3-4 rows. Then you have the actual buckle itself at the front. </p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a Peranakan 5-Tingkat belt: </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2018/12/09/1920s_peranakan_silver_belt_5tiers_with_phoenix_buckle_1544340596_8913c71b_progressive.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t see that construction here. It just looks like woven silver mesh, which I&#039;ve never seen in a Peranakan belt. </p><p><br /></p><p>Another way of making a silver Peranakan belt was with &quot;panels&quot;. Basically, you have plates or tiles of silver, which are linked together by silver rings, and they go around in a circle, with a buckle at the front. To save money, some people would give the silversmith BIG SILVER COINS - as big as they could find - and say: </p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Make me a belt out of these!&quot; </p><p><br /></p><p>Peranakan silver coin belt:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2018/10/03/1940s_peranakan_silver_coin_belt_1538577687_62ed5ae5.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>So he&#039;d drill, link and make a belt out of the coins, and then fashion a buckle out of whatever was left over. It was cheaper than asking the silversmith to make each panel individually. All you had to do was find enough silver coins of the right size, and quantity. </p><p><br /></p><p>An even CHEAPER way of doing it was to simply get a silver chain, put a silver coin on it, and a buckle, and turn that into a belt (I have one of those, which belonged to my grandmother). </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://media.karousell.com/media/photos/products/2018/06/29/antique_peranakan_silver_coin_belt_1530262046_9811d97b.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>I see that your belt has two silver panels at the front, and then the rest is made of silver mesh, and then a panel buckle at the front. I&#039;ve never seen that style in Peranakan silversmithing. </p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a Peranakan &quot;Panel&quot;-style belt: </p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/eb/22/35/eb22358cc81a05f8eca49838488ba98d.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>These are the four basic styles of Peranakan belts. For your belt to be Peranakan, it would have to first match one of these styles. If it doesn&#039;t, then it likely isn&#039;t Peranakan.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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