Hello Ian,
i'm not totally convinced with Cato's barung aging. i believe the second one you posted is older than 1930 (or 1920, for that matter). below are pictures of Panglima Unga and his compatriots. if you notice, Panglima Unga's barung appears to be what Cato would call a post 1930 piece, and so is the two gentlemen in the middle behind him.
as far as what is more appealing, i would say it depends. i started collecting wanting a nice barung. once i got a pretty decent one, i'd like to get a junggayan. after that, an ivory junggayan. and so on, and so forth. we have OCD, fellas. once we get what we want, we always strive for something else, lol
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