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Originally Posted by RSWORD
What I find interesting about Dave's kris is that it has a mixture of sharp pointy luk and more typical late 19th, early 20th century smoother flowing luk. If you look at all the pictures, not all the luk are pointy. In my experience, the later pieces have ALL pointy luk. I think the provenance is solid enough on this piece. To name an individual and the fact that the items were in storage since the 1930's I don't think was provided loosely. Auction houses rarely list that kind of provenance. If they didn't have a certain degree of certainty I don't think they would have mentioned that. Then again, I have seen auction houses out and out lie but I don't think that is the norm, I think that tends to be the exception. I think they misidentify way, way more but in this particular case I would have more confidence in the provenance and would say this kris is 1900-1920. Without the provenance, I personally would have placed that sword circa 1930-40 so we are only talking a 20-30 year difference. Where did the dating philosophy of pointy luk originate? Has it ever been challenged? Are there other provenance examples that show pointy luk that pre-date WW2? I think this piece stands on its own and whether it is 1920 or 1950 is pretty inconsequential to its appeal as is.
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Rick, it sounds like you are talking about Drac2k's kris, not Dave's. Is that correct? Sounds like you are. If so, i don't think anyone is denying that this kris has "appeal" based upon it's age. I agree that it's a really nice item regardless of the exact age. I also agree that many of our assumptions about judging age on these weapons should be challenged. It seems that most of what we tend to think in this regard is all based on one book, Cato. So i think there is always room for questions. I think there are certainly examples of pre-1930s kris that don't have a separate gangya and certainly there are some examples of newer kris that do.
I would still be interested to know if this blade is laminated or mono steel. Drac2k, you don't need to be particularly skilled to do a mild etch on this blade. Vinegar can act as a gentle etching agent, enough at least to show laminations in the blade if they exist. It is also very easy to polish the effect off. Kind of hard to ruin the blade with this method. I still think knowing whether it is laminated or mono steel will go a long way in helping top determine the age of this kris. While i think there are some examples out there of older mono steel pieces, most older kris are laminated and most recent examples tend to be mono steel. Again, if it is indeed mono steel AND has pointy luks it seems a good indication for a later dating.
