keris jalak with rare pamor
 

Hi all

in spirit of sharing knowledge, here it is another keris of mine.

This keris is simple. What makes it nice is the pamor

I believe this dhapur is known as Jalak Ngore (CMIIW), and this one is not stained properly due to poor storage before

this one has "Unthuk Banyu / Unthuk Segara" pamor

Unthuk banyu means = froth / foam of water / sea water
it is believed this pamor will help in terms of relationship with others

this pamor is unique, apart from it is rarely seen, this kind of pamor along with time and maintenance, the different metal will corrode differently, and producing saw-like edges (can be seen in the pictures)

the "wood" powder you see in the pictures is sandalwood powder

about the age ... say this one has been someone's family heirloom for 30 years, so at least it is 30 years old

first, I have to borrow one pictures of friend of mine in Indonesian forum about similar keris, but thought to be made in 18th century, courtesy of Mr. Hidayat - so comparison can be made

pardon my pics as I took it using iphone

enjoy!!

regards
Donny

Fascinating pamor. Is the this recently made stuff?

Looks like two different pamors to me, first one looks like balls of string ; yes, the second example's style has been done in recent times .

Both are not unknown in newer keris .

Not sure just how much comparison can be made. I agree with Rick, these are not the same pamor patterns. Also agree that Donny's is current era.
Hard to say solely from photos of Mr. Hidayat's example. Lovely current era dress, but i am afraid i don't know how to spot a well made and expertly aged modern piece from the real thing strictly from a couple of photos. While complex pamors of this sort are known to have existed in older blades, well preserved examples such as this are few and far between. It (Mr. Hidayat's) is a beautiful keris regardless. :shrug: :)

I believe so

newly made (kamardikan) in terms of keris could mean somewhere between 0 - 67 years

I agree with you, as with books I attached below, the unthuk banyu pamor is confined within the blade, and in mine, it is becoming parts of the cutting edge.

you mean that the pamor, which like )))((( is the 1st pamor
and the spine consists of another ??

if so, what pamor do you think this keris is ??

if you see this example, http://agenbiteofinwit.com/keris2.html
and according to couple friend of mine, my keris above still categorised as unthuk banyu pamor

but I am agree that there are differences between both blades. Therefore, what pamor do you think it is ??

here's more pics and also a page from my book explaining about pamor unthuk banyu :D

continuing the story ...

this particular keris comes in pair ... there's another one in different dhapur but with the same types of pamor when I bought it

perhaps the previous owner needs popularity so bad as this type of pamor is believed to boost in relationships and popularity :D
pictures will be posted, soon

Your pamor does seem to be closer to the one in the above link.
As to what pamor to call Mr. Hidayat's keris, i couldn't really say. Personally i don't spend too much time trying to figure out pamor names since they tend to sometimes change from era to era, region to region and even village to village. :shrug:

yeah, I know that
but in light of education, I personally tend to use familiar terms in books rather than following local dialects

now this is another keris, which comes with the jalak keris and definitely kamardikan (according to me)

any comment is welcome

From a bladesmith's point of view those two different pamor are quite wonderful. The first one is more difficult to forge than the second.
Well worth stealing those for my own work.
Thank you for posting them.

Ric

You're welcome, Ric

I have seen and held hundreds of keris, and still considered myself a newbie, and this type of pamor is rarely seen, perhaps due to the difficulty in making it

and your comment is similar with my first thought on this keris - how can they made something so intricate, yet so beautiful ... with limited resources compared to modern smiths

that's what driven me to preserve this blade

Perhaps Donny, but i thought we were all in agreement that these examples are made by modern smiths... :confused:

I don't think Hidayat's keris is recent David, I've only ever seen old examples of this pamor, also the style of the blade is an old style. I've got an example of this myself.

Thanks Alan. I wasn't making any serious challenge of this keris in regards to age, merely commenting that my ability to be able to judge the difference between an actual old example of this pamor and a newly made and expertly aged example solely based upon this photograph is basically nil. And it is a beauty regardless. A very intriguing and complex pamor in beautiful dress. In my comment above i was really referring to all the other examples shown which still seem to me to be a completely different pamor pattern than Hidayat's keris :)

agree with you .... to know, we must held it in our hand ... pictures does speak thousand words, but cannot substitute real handling :D

I spoke to my friend, a pande (blacksmith) here in Surabaya, he usually made daggers, dirks and scythe ... and he said that he cannot reproduce the blade or even make a blade with the same pamor ... too difficult he said

Beautiful pamor.

Being able to make such a complex pamor in past days gone must had called for a truly experienced and/or gifted maker.

Very nice :)

Thanks,

J.

Indeed...and good assistants...that is not a one man job.
Keep the pictures coming...you folk have shown me pamor I have never dreamed of...wonderful work.

Ric

Abstract ?
 

Here's a portion of a what I suspect is an uncontrolled pamor on a Wilah attributed to Pak Budi . :)
The black Iron has a couple of shades that I could not bring up with my limited image manipulation skills . :o

A Planned Pamor
 

Presented in honor of its originator .

Wonderful, beautiful and fascinating Keris gentlemen.

Hey Rick,

Whats the deal with that really BLACK stain?
I've got a Keris with a really complex pamor that has a similar very black stain.

Pamor colour depends on four things:-

1)--- material

2)--- the skill of the person doing the stain

3)--- the materials available to carry out the stain job

4)--- the weather


these four factors provide the answer to every variation noted in the colour of stained blades

I think Alan covered it buddy . ;) :)

CMIIW, as I am a newbie in this field, but as far as I know, balinese tend to stain their blade blacker than javanese keris ? my friend here named the style of staining of balinese keris as dongsalibing

the final result is the balinese keris is much darker and smoother than its javanese counterparts

I may be wrong, as I never encounter this information on any books, but from several friend of mine, who are in this field for couple of decades

look at the comparison below, keris bali first, keris jawa second

Alan, Rick, Satsujinken

Thanks gentlemen, I apprecaite the help. It's always a learning curve for me in the Keris section :)

Donny, the reason that Balinese blades often appear to be darker than Javanese and other blades is because Balinese blades do not have a textured surface.

The factors that I have listed do cover the reasons for blade colour.

Here is a link to a blade that I made some years ago.

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/PBXIImaisey2.html

It is a Javanese form, but a Balinese finish. If I had done a textured finish to the surface of this blade it would not appear so dark. However, some Javanese blades even with a textured surface can be pretty dark, its all about the factors that I've listed. Use the "INDEX" tab on the linked page and and you can see recent blades made by other craftsmen working in Surakarta 20 years ago:- some are very black, others are not.

One thing is true:- you cannot alter the colour of the material with which a blade is made. Most older blades are simply impossible to get really black. Really old blades often have pamor that provides contrast by use of high phosphorus and low phosphorus irons, and all you ever get there is dark grey and light grey.

Moderators:- my apologies for the linked pages, but I do not have these photos on file any longer, and I'm not going to photograph them again.

Understood Alan, but now you are required never to take this page down.
;) :)

I probably will take it down as soon as I have time to do better photos --- which will not be some time soon --- I can now produce better images than these ones, but the replacement page will be the same content as the present one.

if it's up to me, I will send you invitation to come to Indonesia, grant you honorary citizenship, grant you title "living national treasure" and build you a school solely on the study of tosan aji
and will pay you well to pass on your knowledge ...

sadly it's just a dream ...

i love the way you answered directly using technical terms. Nobody ever taught me the composition of pamor made by low and high phosphorus content in iron ... all I know was pamor is mainly made from nickel, some meteorites and so on

this kind of knowledge must be preserved ... do you ever wrote books on keris ? if so, where can I buy one ?

now i would like to ask ... in ancient times, how did empus selected materials for making keris (considering the shortage of good quality iron back then ? is it like making tamahagane for japanese sword, where only the best materials are used for swords - lesser quality ones going to be housewares / gardening tools.

i have tons of questions and I hope you don't mind sparing some time to share your knowledge :D

thank you
regards
donny

on other case, if you haven't heard it

news released only recently in early september 2012

Surakarta will provide IDR 30 billion budget to build Keris Museum
there are some serious talks and the government seemed to be agreeing the proposal

it is planned to be study center for tosan aji, so that this precious heritage may be preserved for future generations (good that indonesians starting to value their heritage)

according to plan - it will be finished in 2015

I certainly hope to see you there someday :D

If you can find the work of Prof. Jerzy Piaskowski of Poland, he did some detailed analysis of old keris blades some time back that details this high and low phosphorous content in iron. The pamor patterns in these old blades did not come from nickel content. Not quite sure where you can get a hold of this research currently, but maybe others can help.