Hello Alan,
Thank you for your interesting reply again and I will just make some minor observations:
You first say that the blade in post # 14 may be from Pajajaran and in next sentence from Tuban, I think that you mean post # 10 may be from Pajajaran and post #14 from Tuban, please confirm.
To my eyes, the blades shown in posts # 10 and # 17 are quite similar (the style of tikel alis for instance), however # 17 is more recent I think, and the differences may only come from the village smiths who made them. If you held # 17 in your hand, you would probably disregard the Mataram classification because of its size (43 cm without peksi). I show you two other similar blades for reference, the first one is 42 cm long and similar to post # 10 and the second one 40 cm long and similar to post# 17 (more recent).
Regarding the differences between the old blades in the European museums and those attributed to contemporary Javanese periods, of course I agree that the erosion should play a part. However the differences in the shape of these two categories of blades (size, luks, kembang kacang, ganja, gandik, etc.) are such that it does not appear to be a sufficient explanation to me, and the pamor should have virtually disappeared from these "ghost" blades, which is not always the case. Of course I assume that the dating and provenance of these krisses in the museums are basically correct, if not from where? (Bali as thought by Bambang Harsrinuksmo?).
And I fully agree with your conclusion....
Best regards
Jean
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