My First Post
 

After finding a Keris at my local flea market here in Australia, I started researching the blade online and have been absolutely blown away by the number of variations of this fascinating piece of art. A lot of my questions have lead to this forum, which I have been perusing now for the last couple of days.
From what I can tell, this is Javanese in origin. I would love for the experts on here to tell me more about this amazing dagger. Thank you for your time, the wealth of knoweledge I have already gleaned and for accepting me onto this wonderful forum.

Welcome to the forum Catmeowin.
Yes, you do seem to have basically a Javanese keris, but the hilt that is on it is a Madurese style. You can see the influences of Colonial Dutch with features such as epaulettes on the "shoulder" areas of the hilt. It is a fair carving. Nothing nearly as skilled as the Madurese can be with see hilts. This hilt is backwards, btw, and should be facing 180 degrees in the other direction.
The blade has 11 luk (waves) as is commonly counted in an alternating method. Not a high end masterpiece, but a reasonable well executed blade. I am sure others will comment more specifically on this.
The sheath (wrongko) seems a rather nice one. It is wrongko iras, which means it was carved all from one piece of wood rather than having a separate stem (gandar) glued onto it. As you can image, this method is more difficult and requires more skill. I would like to see better photos that include the entire top sheath, but it seems to be a Solo style called gayaman kagol bancih. Gayaman refers to sheath generally meant for everyday use as opposed to ladrang sheaths meant for more formal occasions.

I think we're looking at an East Jawa keris here, possibly Madura, even though it lacks the steeply inclined inwards gandhik.

The point area is typically Madura with the long distance from last luk to point, the greneng with its lack of discipline and no formal rondha is typical of Madura.


The wrongko is Solo style, and it is pretty nice.

I'd be inclined to replace the hilt with a Solo planar one and give it an undamaged mendak.

Overall, not a bad keris.

Yes, i forgot to mention that the mendak has been flattened. I believe Alan's idea might be best in spite of his identifying this blade as probably as East Jawa/Madura. A planar hilt will give the over all ensemble it's best look and it isn't too hard or expensive to come by a decent example. Probably simple without a selut. You can also find a decent mendak for this pretty reasonably priced as well.

Thanks for the information. The hilt had been glued on. I have since removed it and painstakingly removed the epoxy. I will order a new mendak and hilt when I can. Also oiled the blade with mineral/jasmine oil. Nice to have as part of my collection of sharp pointy things! :D
Any ideas of the parmor and possibly a period? I've been told 19th-early 20th century?

Good start Cat.

If you wish to protect both the blade, and its scabbard, it is advisable to wrap the blade in plastic after oiling and before placing in the scabbard, if you do not wrap it, the oil will, over time, stain the wood of the scabbard, it will dry out on the blade and you will finish up with no protection at all. Plastic sandwich wrap works OK.

As to age, 19th century is as good a guess as any.

Thank you so much for the feedback. I now have direction for getting this keris back to its former glory. The insightful comments were more than I'd hoped. Thank you.