Bali keris ?

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes David, certainly. I'm away from home at the moment, and my net connection is intermittent to say the least, so I've been trying to keep anything I post to the net to be as short as possible, but I can expand a bit on my comment.

This style of blade in a Bali blade is normally seen as an older blade, and if look at the example shown here, there appears to be some fraying at the kanyut/buntut urang, and a few areas of light pitting, suggesting that indeed it is an older blade. Yes, this sort of thing can always be created, but in this case I doubt that it has been.

Complex pamor miring in an old Bali blade is something that is extremely rare, and when it does appear it is seldom well executed. In more recent Bali blades, say ones from the first 40 years of the 20th century, and later, we do see complex pamor miring, and we do see much better pamor work than in older blades, but these more recent blades also tend to have much more elaborate and higher quality garap; many older blades are quite plain, with high quality garap being a rarity, rather than something that is usual.

Surface manipulated pamors are sometimes seen in Bali blades, both old or recent, but in older blades even surface manipulated pamors are not very often well executed.

Bali-Lombok blades often exhibit a high degree of craftsmanship, but more often in terms of garap than in complex pamors.

When I look at this blade under discussion what I believe I can see from the photo is an older keris that has beautifully executed pamor on each blade face. The surface is polished as a Bali blade would be, the style is not uncommon in older Bali blades.

In short the blade seems to be full of contradictions.

It could well be an East Javanese blade, a Madura blade, or even a North Coast blade.

It might even be a Bali blade, or a Bali-Lombok blade but I'm not prepared to give any opinion, because I could not defend that opinion on the basis of a photograph.