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Originally Posted by David
Well Cal, they are made of ferric material, iron and steel. When pamor is present and visible there is often nickel contained within it. It is nickel that does not react to the arsenic and lime mixture of the warangan treatment that makes the pamor stand out so on high contrast blades. On rare occasion with some high end keris made sometime after the fall of the Prambanan meteorite in the mid 18th century pamor has been sourced from the highly nickelous meteoric iron ore, producing a very high contrast in the pattern. But this has mostly been reserved for blades of the royal court. But there are also many older keris where there are levels of contrast in the pamor with no nickel present at all, contrast due to different types of iron used in the pamor.
I believe it would be next to impossible for anyone to tell you what the exact source of the iron used in any particular keris is without having been there at the forging. The same can be said for meteoric pamor since once forced it doesn't look all that different than if terrestrial nickel was used in the pamor mix.
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Thank you for your replies.