To stain or not to stain?
These days just about every keris we see, from anywhere, is stained.
Buyers expect it. Try selling a keris that is unstained and you very quickly find out that the price a buyer is willing to pay drops through the floor.
Collectors, especially collectors in the western world do want the pamor pattern to jump out of the blade and blind them.
However.
My personal opinion, and it is an opinion, not a widely held piece of knowledge, is that this staining thing is pretty recent and might be able to be attributed to human laziness, or perhaps more kindly, a new direction in taste.
Last year I handled a lot of very old blades in European museums. None had any evidence of ever having been stained, the surfaces were smooth and polished, where a blade did have a pamor you needed to get it under angled light to see it.
Similarly, I have seen and handled blades in the Surakarta Karaton store rooms. Many old blades bear no evidence of stain. From memory,there is an old blade that has never been in use , on display in the Karaton museum, and that has a Bali-like finish and a very light stain.
Sometimes in carvings from the classical era we see weapons with rays of light emanating from them; I do not know if we can interpret this as a depiction of the blade having a spiritual quality, or if it is simply depiction of reflected light.
Until the regeneration of interest in keris that has occurred since about 1980, if I bought a Peninsula or Bugis keris from outside point of origin, say from Britain, or USA or here in Australia, these keris were usually polished, or at least, they bore evidence of an unstained finish --- not always so, but usually.
So, if I look at these keris that John has shown us, my inclination would be to do almost nothing.
The ivory hilted one I would probably give a good soak with WD40 or some other penetrating oil, then gentle selective cleaning with picks, a hard toothbrush and maybe a little bit of steel wool wound around the end of a sate stick. Wash with mineral turps and toothbrush, dry with hairdryer, drench again with WD40, allow to dry, then apply a long term protective oil and store in plastic film.
I find it advisable to use a 2X or 3X jeweler's loupe when doing this sort of work.
The horn hilted one I'd probably use a small acid brush and just apply the acid to the corroded areas. I'd probably use hydrochloric and I would not leave it to work and walk away, I'd be watching it while it worked. Then I'd pick the loose corrosion out of the pits and repeat and repeat until I got down to hard metal. When the corrosion was 99% gone it would get a light cleaning with vinegar or citric acid, get rinsed well, WD40 over night and protective oil and plastic film. I would not stain this second blade. Not if it was going into my own collection I wouldn't.
I've used a few "probably's" here. I've done that because if I handled these keris my opinions might change, but from what I can see the above is how I would proceed.
Old, dry wood, ivory, bone, horn, all respond well to repeated application of hand rubbed baby oil.
Naturally I would demount the blades before doing anything at all.
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