Bali keris of unknown origin

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, the keris is Balinese or Balinese style, the atasan is Balinese style, the pendok is not Balinese, and the hilt is more likely to be Lombok than Bali.

There is perhaps a possibility that this keris was put together in Lombok, but my personal opinion is that it is much more likely to have been put together in Surabaya.

I find it very difficult to accept the embossing work on that pendok as being from a Balinese hand.

I did not nominate a particular person in my earlier post without a basis for so doing.

Bear this in mind Jean:- a buntut is added to a pendok or a gandar for a functional reason, it is not placed there for ornamentation. The reason for its existence is prevent dislodging the scabbard when the keris is drawn, and Balinese keris have no need for that buntut because they are not worn in a way where a buntut would serve any functional purpose.

However, many collectors do find the existence of a buntut to be very cool indeed, so dealers who understand the collector market have in the past sometimes added a buntut to a scabbard in order to make a keris more attractive to a buyer.

Over a long time I have known a lot of Indonesian dealers personally, and other dealers through trade and correspondence. You might find this a little bit surprising, but prior to the birth of the internet and the rapid spread of keris knowledge & belief through that medium, most dealers whom I encountered knew precious little about the keris and keris-like objects they were dealing in. They understood their buyers very well, and they understood the market place, but their knowledge of the keris was not particularly wonderful.

On a similar note, are those stones or pastes in the uwer pink? Do you think that this uwer would be fitted to a keris for wear and/or use by a Balinese man? Can we name the colours that are permissible for the stones in an uwer intended for use in traditional Balinese society?