[A. G. Maisey]

Blade is Madura, not before mid-1980's. bendo sagodo. It is not really a perfect rendition of BS, and there are other names that people could perhaps favour more, but I'd call it BS at any time, simply because that name is the most easily recognised.

The wrongko & pendok are both old. Hilt might be too, but I cannot see it well enough to give an opinion.

I think the stones in the mendak are what we call "American diamonds" = cubic zirconia. In a photo it is not possible to catch the light and judge the way that the light behaves, so I cannot be certain, but the regularity of the cut indicates cubics. The traditional stones are either yakut or intan and they are rose cut, yakut is rock crystal, intan is low grade diamond. If the material is diamond, but it is cut in a regular way, it is berlian.

I cannot recall ever having seen ordinary glass used in a Javanese mendak. To test for cubics turn the stones at an angle to the light, the way in which the light comes off the stone should look like a diamond.

The light that comes off either berlian or intan has a bluish tint to it, the light of cubics is like the white light that comes off most diamonds in the Western World.

If you use a loupe to look at an old berlian or intan, a stone that is in something that might be 100 years old and has been worn regularly, you will usually see that the edges of the cut are still sharp and undamaged, they might have chip or two, but they will not be bruised and made dull.Old glass will have dull edges to the cut, so will yakut. Cubics have not been around long enough to judge in this way.