Old Cirebon Keris for comment.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your response Jean, we can all be wrong, so apologies are not necessary, similarly, we all only give opinions based upon our own experience, and since all of us have limited experience our opinions are similarly limited.

My position on Severin's gambar is not that it is North Jawa. I am not comparing this scabbard as North Coast against East Coast. I am comparing it's component parts against all of the rest of Jawa.

In my experience the gambar displays Surakarta influence, it is similar in some ways to the areas to the West of Solo, towards Banyumas. To my eye it does not display any unique characteristics that would indicate East Jawa or North Coast Jawa. The craftsmanship is very pedestrian, there is nothing in this gambar that indicates the work of a highly skilled hand. I am not prepared to give an opinion on where it might be from, to my eye it is generic Jawa, but it does display Surakarta characteristics, and that is only to be expected because of the very widespread influence of Surakarta style (in all things).

I think I do understand why you want to place it as Jawa Timur, tapi for me the indicators are not strong enough.

The gandar used by Severin displays characteristics of two very old ladrangan wrongkos in my own collection, one of those was collected in Batavia around 1920, the other I bought in Sydney in 1956. Both the keris in these two wrongkos have ivory North Coast raksasa hilts, both are straight Tuban keris, both scabbards are made from timoho. The gambars of both keris are damaged badly neither are Cirebon ladrangs, in overall form they tend towards Ngyogyakarta, but I would not go so far as to classify them as Jogja. I cannot place these ladrang gambars into an area, they are just generic Jawa. Both gambars are original to the blades.

Jean, the top photo in your examples I would place as Madura, the second photo I would hesitate to be definite about, it actually looks as if it has been remade/reshaped by somebody who was not a tukang wrongko, I would probably give this second wrongko as generic Jawa. The third (dark wood) wrongko I would give as East Jawa/Madura. The bottom one puzzles me a little, I'd probably give it as Madura, but I would need to handle it to be sure.

I am reluctant to use material in Javanese wrongkos as an indicator. It is true that East Jawa wrongkos often use timoho or other kayu pelet, but timoho & pelet occurs in wrongkos from all over Jawa & Bali. In my opinion material is not a good location indicator. The only reliable indicator is style.

In any case, once this gambar & gandar have been properly mated, and the blade properly fitted, it will present as a very nice old keris, one that other collectors in 100 years time will try to classify --- and those collectors also will have limited experience, even more limited than collectors of today.