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Originally Posted by Roland_M
Hi David. The age of a Keris is not very important for me. I removed the hilt and checked the tang. My opinion is early to mid 20th century or younger and badly stored.
A Keris is more an artwork than a weapon for me and a nice pamor and shape is much more important than the age.
The surface of this blade looks shattered and is either strongly corroded or etched with a special technique. The point is lost but not broken, it looks like a frayed v-shaped cut.
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Roland, it is good to know that the age of the keris is not very important to you, however, you did ask for comments and that was one i was able to offer. Though it is still not important to you i would disagree with your own opinion on age. As Alan has pointed out, this is a rather modern creation, post 1970, most probably later than that. Certainly not a pre-WWII piece. It may have been badly stored or it may have corroded purposefully to give the impression of greater age.
If art work and a nice pamor are what is important to you than i must say that to my eye at least this keris has neither very good pamor work nor a particularly pleasing shape for the panjang form. It is a blade most likely created in Madura of a keris form from outside that particular area of keris culture. As such it presents itself to me as a attempt at a form which the smith was not very adept at or completely familiar with. You can find many of these on the market these days and my feeling is that they are created mostly for collectors who want to add the so-called "executioners keris" to their collections at more reasonable prices than actual Sumatran and Malay keris panjangs.
Please forgive me if this assessment sounds harsh. It is not intended to sway you from liking this keris, only to put it in context to what a good keris panjang actually is.