These two keris are an assembly of some nice, but unrelated, parts.
The ivory hilt is Sumenep, Madura, the blade on that hilt is a very ordinary old blade that has been altered to make it more attractive for sale, the mendak, is low grade pasar quality, the wrongko is Balinese, and appears to be quite respectable.
The kocet-kocetan hilt appears to be well carved, but it is fitted with a pendongkok, probably Peninsula, the blade on this hilt may, or may not be Balinese, I cannot say without handling it, in any case, its a nice older blade, the wrongko for this keris looks as if it could be good; if the atasan (top cross piece) is ebony, that combined with the very nice timoho gandar, makes it a good wrongko.
These are married pieces, my guess is that they were put together by a dealer or collector outside of Indonesia---this type of marriage is exceedingly rare in Indonesia. However, as I have said, a collection of quite decent pieces that could be redistributed when the opportunity occurs to create good, genuine keris. The only real dud is the blade that somebody took the Makita to.
|