Little Things
 

Mendak.

They are little things that can either make or break the presentation of a keris.

They should be of the correct type and correct quality to match the quality of the rest of the dress.

Good ones are difficult to get and good ones are not cheap.

Good old ones are sometimes prohibitively expensive, and for some years now it has been very, very difficult to find any decent old mendak at all.

Really old mendak are even more scarce.

Here are a few of mine.

Beautiful pictures Alan! And agree with you that it is really difficult to get good old mendaks and also new ones of good quality. I see on your pictures some very old ones, which materials are they from? Very nice are the ones from gold, are they from pure gold or gold plated?

Regards,
Detlef

Yes, there are some very old mendak there. Bronze ones.

There are two gold ones I think, and they are set with diamonds --- usual low quality.

Hello Alan,
Thank you for posting the pictures of these nice and rare items.
I take this opportunity to ask you which are the types of mendak suitable for East Java/ Madura krisses and Cirebon/ pesisiran krisses as it is not much documented nor clear to me.
Thank you and best regards
Jean

Rather than try to explain Jean, I'll do some more pics of these. Generally speaking they are a bit larger than Central Jawa and very often are just a shell, not constructed as the Central Jawa ones are.

Jean, it is my understanding that any of the mendak shown in these photos are correct for use with Madura, North Coast or East Jawa hilts.

However, we must bear in mind that everything shown here is old, at least 1930's. In the period following WWII it seems to have become normal practice to use Surakarta mendak with just about all Javanese/Madura keris. Sometimes we see Jogja mendak used as correct with Jogja keris, but Jogja mendak are not that easy to get and more often than not Surakarta mendak will be used with Jogjakarta keris too.

Thank you Alan, what a nice collection and excellent reference for us!
Best regards
Jean

Yes great reference for us indeed! Thank you.

Thank you gentlemen, it may be a useful reference, but I do not know how it could be put to use, mendak like these very seldom appear for sale these days, probably all my older, better mendak were bought more than 20 years ago .

On the European market we can sometimes find old mendak fitted on old family krisses and the sellers are not aware of their rarity.
Best regards
Jean