Hilt Mendahk

[HughChen]

In my memory, there was a thead discussing this type of hilt structure, but I can't find it anymore. Could anyone provide it?

[David]

I assume you mean the selut, which is situated on the base of the hilt just above the mendhak. I don't remember if we have had a thread dedicated just to the selut, but if you enter the word into our search engine you will find 12 pages of threads where the selut is at least mentioned.

[A. G. Maisey]

This does not answer your question Hugh, but it might be useful to you.

This is a selut of Surakarta style in the njeruk keprok form, it was most probably made in Purwokerto.

The material could be either silver or tin & a selut of either material will have a similar value, the white stones are probably yakut (rose cut rock crystal), the red one probably garnet.

This is not a high quality selut & you might find that the stones are held in place with adhesive, rather than being mechanically set.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by David

I assume you mean the selut, which is situated on the base of the hilt just above the mendhak. I don't remember if we have had a thread dedicated just to the selut, but if you enter the word into our search engine you will find 12 pages of threads where the selut is at least mentioned.

Thank you David, I find the thread I mean. It's not all about the selut, some discussion is concerned with the form of the selut. Some mentions that if the upper rim is curved or scalloped, the keris will be of high quality. https://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showt...=chinese+deity

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

This does not answer your question Hugh, but it might be useful to you.

This is a selut of Surakarta style in the njeruk keprok form, it was most probably made in Purwokerto.

The material could be either silver or tin & a selut of either material will have a similar value, the white stones are probably yakut (rose cut rock crystal), the red one probably garnet.

This is not a high quality selut & you might find that the stones are held in place with adhesive, rather than being mechanically set.

Thank you Alan, Why silver and so many stones can not make the selut a high quality one? Many similar hilts don't even have a selut, just hilt plus a small mendahk.

[A. G. Maisey]

Quality of workmanship & quality of materials are two different things Hugh.

This is not a bad selut, but it is a very long way from what we might consider to be "good", it is fair average pasar quality.

The white stones are very probably yakut, there is virtually no monetary value in these stones, the red stone probably garnet, again no real monetary value.

The metal might be silver, or it might be tin, either material will cost within a few dollars of each selut's price. In fact, for this sort of selut many people prefer tin because it does not tarnish and when worn, it looks like silver anyway.

The workmanship in this selut is again not bad workmanship in the section we can see, but it is very long way from good, it is also a very long way from the lowest cost selut that can be obtained. Even though this is just FAQ, it still has a value in the market place that would be comparable to a low value keris.

Any selut at all is not a low cost item. If we have a well carved iron selut on a well carved hilt with some age, we could say that the iron selut alone makes up half the value of the hilt + selut, and that value will be comparable to the value of a pretty decent keris.

If we compare a selut such as the one you have shown us, we are not looking at big money, but it will still cost as much as a low level keris, or maybe a bit more.

Now, if we go to very good selut, made as a bespoke item by a good jeweller from 22ct gold and set with brilliant cut diamonds and rubies, then we are looking at the cost of a new middle quality small motor car.

In a good quality dress keris, the value of the selut alone can exceed the combined value of all other components that make up the complete keris.

Between the bottom of the market, & the top of the market there are many graduations of value, which means that just about anybody can have a selut as a part of his keris, if he wants it.

The seluts that we see today developed from plain iron ferrules that were intended to stop a hilt splitting under pressure, & in very old keris that did use an iron ferrule, not every keris had one.

The early keris of modern form and the even earlier Keris Buda, had a metuk, just like a tombak metuk, rather than a mendak. As the use of a keris as a required part of formal dress increased, so did the complexity and elegance of keris dress increase, & the metuk was replaced with a mendak.

Early mendak were cast, sometimes bronze, or brass, or any other suitable material, but that solid cast mendak was gradually replaced by a fabricated mendak that tended to collapse under pressure, thus acting as a sort of shock absorber when a strike encountered bone or perhaps a belt buckle.

The mendak & selut is a rewarding field of study.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Quality of workmanship & quality of materials are two different things Hugh.

This is not a bad selut, but it is a very long way from what we might consider to be "good", it is fair average pasar quality.

The white stones are very probably yakut, there is virtually no monetary value in these stones, the red stone probably garnet, again no real monetary value.

The metal might be silver, or it might be tin, either material will cost within a few dollars of each selut's price. In fact, for this sort of selut many people prefer tin because it does not tarnish and when worn, it looks like silver anyway.

The workmanship in this selut is again not bad workmanship in the section we can see, but it is very long way from good, it is also a very long way from the lowest cost selut that can be obtained. Even though this is just FAQ, it still has a value in the market place that would be comparable to a low value keris.

Any selut at all is not a low cost item. If we have a well carved iron selut on a well carved hilt with some age, we could say that the iron selut alone makes up half the value of the hilt + selut, and that value will be comparable to the value of a pretty decent keris.

If we compare a selut such as the one you have shown us, we are not looking at big money, but it will still cost as much as a low level keris, or maybe a bit more.

Now, if we go to very good selut, made as a bespoke item by a good jeweller from 22ct gold and set with brilliant cut diamonds and rubies, then we are looking at the cost of a new middle quality small motor car.

In a good quality dress keris, the value of the selut alone can exceed the combined value of all other components that make up the complete keris.

Between the bottom of the market, & the top of the market there are many graduations of value, which means that just about anybody can have a selut as a part of his keris, if he wants it.

The seluts that we see today developed from plain iron ferrules that were intended to stop a hilt splitting under pressure, & in very old keris that did use an iron ferrule, not every keris had one.

The early keris of modern form and the even earlier Keris Buda, had a metuk, just like a tombak metuk, rather than a mendak. As the use of a keris as a required part of formal dress increased, so did the complexity and elegance of keris dress increase, & the metuk was replaced with a mendak.

Early mendak were cast, sometimes bronze, or brass, or any other suitable material, but that solid cast mendak was gradually replaced by a fabricated mendak that tended to collapse under pressure, thus acting as a sort of shock absorber when a strike encountered bone or perhaps a belt buckle.

The mendak & selut is a rewarding field of study.

Hello， Alan， in close examination, I find the setting technique employed is bezel setting rather than gluing. Does this make it a high quality one?

[A. G. Maisey]

One small detail like that most certainly does not compensate for all other work, but it does mean that it is probably marginally better than it looks in the photos.

[A. G. Maisey]

Here is photo of some somewhat better than usual seluts published in "Keris Jawa".

I have seen and handled several seluts that were far, far better & correspondingly more expensive, than the seluts in my photo.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Here is photo of some somewhat better than usual seluts published in "Keris Jawa".

I have seen and handled several seluts that were far, far better & correspondingly more expensive, than the seluts in my photo.

Thanks for showing those beautiful pics. Are stones in the first pic also crystal and Garnet?

[A. G. Maisey]

I do not know Hugh, but I believe it is highly likely that the red stones are rubies and the white stones are low quality diamonds.

The caption reads:-
selut Krawangan (open work) tretes (set with precious stones) seling (spaced with mirah) bentuk (shape) njeruk keprok (small mandarin), the word mirah means ruby, but it can also be applied to any other red stones

So taking into consideration the overall quality of this selut, my guess is that we are looking at rubies & diamonds, but these would not be high quality stones.

The stones in the selut alongside this first one uses the word "byur" which simply means "sparkling", but they look like diamonds, however, if this selut is recent work, which it probably is, they are just as likely to be cubic zirconia, which in the trade are referred to as "American Diamonds".

[HughChen]

How to ID the entire Keris

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by HughChen

How to ID the entire Keris

Javanese in all parts. Scabbard is the Sandang Walikat style.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes, this description by Detlef is accurate, but we can take it a bit further.

The sandang walikat wrongko is an East Javanese form, the hilt is from, or influenced by Central Javanese Solo/Surakarta style, the selut is njeruk keprok form, the mendak is a kendit form. In English we could call this style of hilt a "planar" form, this form was initiated in Cirebon and became popular amongst young noblemen there, before being taken to Central Jawa when the kingdom of Pajang was established.

The dhapur(form) of the blade is Brojol, it is difficult to assign a classification to this blade from a photo, but it seems as if it could be Tuban-Pajajaran, the pamor is remnant wos wutah (beras wutah/scattered rice grains).

I think that's about all I can say about what I believe I can see in the photos.

[HughChen]

Thank you Alan and Sajen.
Very thorough elaboration. I sometimes see many different pamor elaboration and those introduction says different pamor has different magic function. But it seems that most pamor is just wos wutah.

[A. G. Maisey]

True Hugh.

and wos wutah also has a talismanic value, which is that the custodian of the wos wutah keris will always have sufficient to eat & not know hunger.

wos wutah is known as "mlumah" = "laying down" (with the face up) type pamor & is not difficult to make.

once we get into the other type of pamor, "miring" we enter very difficult territory, no pamor miring is easy or low cost to make.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

True Hugh.

and wos wutah also has a talismanic value, which is that the custodian of the wos wutah keris will always have sufficient to eat & not know hunger.

wos wutah is known as "mlumah" = "laying down" (with the face up) type pamor & is not difficult to make.

once we get into the other type of pamor, "miring" we enter very difficult territory, no pamor miring is easy or low cost to make.

Arethere only two kinds of Pamor? If not, how many in total?

[A. G. Maisey]

There are two, let us say, "divisions"of pamor. Mlumah is made by forge welding & folding a piece of contrasting material between pieces of ferric material, in olden times that ferric material was iron, and very often the contrasting material was a different type of iron, usually "white" iron. This provided the contrast & was cheaper than using nickelous material & more readily available. Since the old-time Indies have opened up to western world trade, the contrasting material has usually been factory produced nickel.In modern times, mild steel is more often used than iron, simply because mild steel is cheap & easy to get & to work.

The premium contrasting material is now, & very possibly was in the past, meteoritic material. We have a record of this being used in Surakarta from about 1820, this meteoritic material came from a meteor fall near Prambanan that had occurred in the 18th century. It is entirely possible that meteoritic material was also used occasionally in olden times, predating the use of Prambanan material. Modern meteoritic material comes from many places. I have made meteoritic pamor for use by a Javanese pande keris, & I have made a number of mechanical damascus knife blades, all the meteoritic material that I used came from the Arkansas fall.

The other "division" of pamor is called "pamor miring". This starts as pamor mlumah, but after we get around 128 nominal layers of contrasting material into the billet, we forge the orientation of those layers from being in a horizontal plane to being in a vertical plane. Once the layers are in a vertical plane we can manipulate the billet of pamor in various ways to create various motifs.

All pamor miring motifs call for much more labour, & much more fuel & much more material to make. They also call for a very high degree of skill on the part of the smith. Consequently a blade bearing pamor miring is much more expensive to make & to buy than a blade that has only pamor mlumah.