Arsenic or realgar for Keris etching?

Marcokeris · 16th August 2009, 04:50 PM

...sometimes i dont like!

kulbuntet · 16th August 2009, 10:21 PM

Like Alan just say,

need to look in to Tangguh of the blade. A new erra blade will never give smame results as a tuban/mojio/matharam/jengala/pajajeran. Just diffrent material/techniques. When washing, should not use the nickel/luwu/meteor material lines as indicator when blade is done.. the iron is the indicator. Iff not black, not realy. Iff is, done.

Marco, you may just call me Michel.. No problem taken is do, or dont. Im 32 and not of royal or other high status so dont need to stay formal on this ;-)

Regards

A. G. Maisey · 16th August 2009, 11:59 PM

Provided that the clean and stain job is done by somebody who understands the process, the end colour of the blade is always 100% dependent upon the material in the blade.

Always.

Bali blades are usually of high contrast material and nickel is mostly present, so they finish looking black and white.

Surakarta blades are similar.

But when you are handling a Pajajaran blade, you are dealing nearly always with pamor that has been produced from high phosphorus iron, so you don't get black and white, you get dark grey and light grey or dirty white.

With a village made blade the material can vary enormously so we need to closely monitor the changes in appearance when we first start to work on it.

We should be able to guess fairly closely what the blade will finish like as soon as we start to work on it, even if we have no idea of classification of the blade.

As for tangguh.

This is a system of classification that in this day and age appears to be almost completely misunderstood. It developed in response to a need, and now that need has passed the guidelines that originally applied are no longer followed. Every salesman, and every collector wants to place a tangguh on his blade, almost as if that is a seal of authenticity. It should not work like this. Tangguh should only be applied to blades of adequate quality that can be identified with a specific source. When we are considering a lower quality blade, or a village made blade, we should not even attempt to place a tangguh on it --- but that will not stop dealers and collectors from continuing to want to do so.

To classify a blade according to tangguh there are a number of indicators that need to be carefully observed and considered. There can be more than twenty, but there should not be less than twelve. Some of these indicators depend upon the perceived weight of the blade, its point of balance, and its texture when felt. It is only occasionally that a blade tangguh can be given from photographs. The occasions where you could chance giving a tangguh from photos would be restricted to some blades of extremely high quality that follow a kraton pattern exactly, or blades with certain distinctive features, such a Segaluh blade

Michel, regarding the presentation of my blades:- all were prepared for photograph in the same way. They are always kept "in oil", because I store my blades in plastic sleeves and the blade surface is always wet with oil. Prior to photographing them they are patted dry with a soft lint free cloth, then brushed over with a soft brush. The differences you can see in the blade surfaces are due to actual differences in the material and degree of erosion in the blades.

kulbuntet · 18th August 2009, 01:24 AM

Yes Alan,

I do understand it clearly. My remark on photography, was more about the difrence in your and my photo's.. specialy the background colour. your is blue.. sort of filter material.. to absorb light difrent than my wooden balcony tile...used to make some quick pics, to show on the forum.

And about tangguh. Yes it's normal for a collector to want to index their pieces, and give a label how old the blade is... as we do on every thing in normal life too. With the keris it's sometimes for comercial value sometimes just to want to know... depends on the person.

These indicators used for Tangguh, might ( do not know for sure, since my experience and knowledge of Tangguh is limited) also posible to use with lower keris than of high m'pu grade work, maybe not all but some wil be posible to do. But it should be used as a impression, and not as as fact or garanteed label. if done properly, it might be posible to get a good or near good impression. Yes of caorse there wil be faults made, but beter a bit of impression than none at all. Like you say, its not posible to get a surakarta blade looking as a jengala, or other way around. And by excluding other posibility's.... you might come up with an resonable impression in period...not in year/date. Wanting to do this must need manny years of knowledge/study/experience, the number of people that im confident they might can do and dare to do, are verry limited. Maybe 2 her in holland, and some in other countrys.

David · 18th August 2009, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kulbuntet

And about tangguh. Yes it's normal for a collector to want to index their pieces, and give a label how old the blade is... as we do on every thing in normal life too. With the keris it's sometimes for comercial value sometimes just to want to know... depends on the person.

I would agree that it is fairly normal collector behavior to want to know certain specifics about our collections including an idea of the age. I know that i always want to know that. I would like to suggest though that the "age" of a keris is not necessarily the "tangguh" of a keris. The tangguh might suggest an age and age might suggest a tangguh, but i do not believe they are exactly the same thing.
I would say that it probably is quite possible for knowledgeable people to estimate the age of a keris when held in hand because they can see the wear, feel the weight, feel the surfaces and compare style and materials with other keris that may come from the same time period. If they understand the pakem of the day and what was being presented as "correct" keris form at the time they can judge if the blade meets the standard of that particular kingdom. But is a poorly made village keris made in the late Mataram kingdom considered to be of that tangguh or simply in it if it doesn't meet the criteria and standard for keris of the day? The concept of tangguh was not created for such keris, was it?
The problem with using tangguh methods to judge the age of some keris is that the inticators for a particular tangguh may not exist in a poorly made village piece or the smith might be might have been working a a style that was out of mode for that tangguh. Even judging by materials used can be tricky. What if the keris was made from older keris? Then how do you date the metal type. In later years many keris are made from old material.
Unless we have some incredible luck with provenance for a keris we will never know the exact date of any keris. Often an expert can put a proper keris in it's proper tangguh, but often those tangguhs span a century or two. On some really high quality empu made keris where there are many known and specific inticators of that empus work someone might be able to narrow an origin down to the working life that specific empu. But this doesn't happen very often, i don't believe.
So with some of these village keris, if you are really lucky you might place it within a couple of hundred years, maybe put it in a century, and yes that is a range that the collector might be able to go with. But is it tangguh?

David · 18th August 2009, 03:47 AM

BTW Marco, i don't think that anyone has remark what a beautiful job you did staining these keris you have shown us.

A. G. Maisey · 18th August 2009, 02:53 PM

Michel, what you say about using tangguh to help form an impression, or as I would state it, a broad opinion of the classification of a blade is pretty much the way I would suggest that it could be used to satisfy the modern collector.

However, this is not the way it was intended to be used, it is more the way that it is practical to use it now.

Used correctly it can applied to give a good approximate indication of the age of a blade back to Mataram Sultan Agung. The closer we come to the present day, the more accurate it can be as an age indicator.

However, when we start to consider the older tangguh classifications it is perhaps best to simply acknowledge that these keris are old keris, and not couple the tangguh with any concept of actual time.

In Jawa you will find some people who will swear that tangguh Majapahit means that that keris was made during the Majapahit era.

You will find others --- others who are extremely knowledgeable ahli keris --- who will say "tangguh nggak sungguh".

To really understand the keris from a Javanese perspective it is absolutely essential to understand how the tangguh system works, and how to apply it. Regretably, the only way to gain this knowledge is to find somebody in Jawa who is prepared to teach you, and who has access to plenty of examples. Then give half a lifetime to the study.

For anybody outside Javanese society the best that can be hoped for is to gain a small understanding of the theory applied to reaching a classification.This theory really precludes the application of the system to lower quality pieces, but as I have already said, very few, if any , people use this system now as it was intended to be used.

However, there is one thing that is true:-

anybody who gives a tangguh classification to a blade must be able to support his opinion with reasoned argument by reference to the indicators he has used.

Far too often a person will say that a blade is tangguh such and such, and when pressed for his reason for saying this the best he can do is to simply say something like
"because its looks like such and such".

This is just not good enough.

However, this failure to provide reasoned argument is precisely what allows half educated "experts" to give tangguh to village quality blades.

If you stick with the indicators it is virtually impossible to classify a low quality piece within the tangguh structure.

16th August 2009, 04:50 PM	#1
Marcokeris Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Italy Posts: 928	...sometimes i dont like! Attached Images

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16th August 2009, 10:21 PM	#2
kulbuntet Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Posts: 159	Like Alan just say, need to look in to Tangguh of the blade. A new erra blade will never give smame results as a tuban/mojio/matharam/jengala/pajajeran. Just diffrent material/techniques. When washing, should not use the nickel/luwu/meteor material lines as indicator when blade is done.. the iron is the indicator. Iff not black, not realy. Iff is, done. Marco, you may just call me Michel.. No problem taken is do, or dont. Im 32 and not of royal or other high status so dont need to stay formal on this ;-) Regards

16th August 2009, 11:59 PM	#3
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,015	Provided that the clean and stain job is done by somebody who understands the process, the end colour of the blade is always 100% dependent upon the material in the blade. Always. Bali blades are usually of high contrast material and nickel is mostly present, so they finish looking black and white. Surakarta blades are similar. But when you are handling a Pajajaran blade, you are dealing nearly always with pamor that has been produced from high phosphorus iron, so you don't get black and white, you get dark grey and light grey or dirty white. With a village made blade the material can vary enormously so we need to closely monitor the changes in appearance when we first start to work on it. We should be able to guess fairly closely what the blade will finish like as soon as we start to work on it, even if we have no idea of classification of the blade. As for tangguh. This is a system of classification that in this day and age appears to be almost completely misunderstood. It developed in response to a need, and now that need has passed the guidelines that originally applied are no longer followed. Every salesman, and every collector wants to place a tangguh on his blade, almost as if that is a seal of authenticity. It should not work like this. Tangguh should only be applied to blades of adequate quality that can be identified with a specific source. When we are considering a lower quality blade, or a village made blade, we should not even attempt to place a tangguh on it --- but that will not stop dealers and collectors from continuing to want to do so. To classify a blade according to tangguh there are a number of indicators that need to be carefully observed and considered. There can be more than twenty, but there should not be less than twelve. Some of these indicators depend upon the perceived weight of the blade, its point of balance, and its texture when felt. It is only occasionally that a blade tangguh can be given from photographs. The occasions where you could chance giving a tangguh from photos would be restricted to some blades of extremely high quality that follow a kraton pattern exactly, or blades with certain distinctive features, such a Segaluh blade Michel, regarding the presentation of my blades:- all were prepared for photograph in the same way. They are always kept "in oil", because I store my blades in plastic sleeves and the blade surface is always wet with oil. Prior to photographing them they are patted dry with a soft lint free cloth, then brushed over with a soft brush. The differences you can see in the blade surfaces are due to actual differences in the material and degree of erosion in the blades.

18th August 2009, 01:24 AM	#4
kulbuntet Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Posts: 159	Yes Alan, I do understand it clearly. My remark on photography, was more about the difrence in your and my photo's.. specialy the background colour. your is blue.. sort of filter material.. to absorb light difrent than my wooden balcony tile...used to make some quick pics, to show on the forum. And about tangguh. Yes it's normal for a collector to want to index their pieces, and give a label how old the blade is... as we do on every thing in normal life too. With the keris it's sometimes for comercial value sometimes just to want to know... depends on the person. These indicators used for Tangguh, might ( do not know for sure, since my experience and knowledge of Tangguh is limited) also posible to use with lower keris than of high m'pu grade work, maybe not all but some wil be posible to do. But it should be used as a impression, and not as as fact or garanteed label. if done properly, it might be posible to get a good or near good impression. Yes of caorse there wil be faults made, but beter a bit of impression than none at all. Like you say, its not posible to get a surakarta blade looking as a jengala, or other way around. And by excluding other posibility's.... you might come up with an resonable impression in period...not in year/date. Wanting to do this must need manny years of knowledge/study/experience, the number of people that im confident they might can do and dare to do, are verry limited. Maybe 2 her in holland, and some in other countrys.

18th August 2009, 03:47 AM	#6
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,218	BTW Marco, i don't think that anyone has remark what a beautiful job you did staining these keris you have shown us.

18th August 2009, 02:53 PM	#7
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,015	Michel, what you say about using tangguh to help form an impression, or as I would state it, a broad opinion of the classification of a blade is pretty much the way I would suggest that it could be used to satisfy the modern collector. However, this is not the way it was intended to be used, it is more the way that it is practical to use it now. Used correctly it can applied to give a good approximate indication of the age of a blade back to Mataram Sultan Agung. The closer we come to the present day, the more accurate it can be as an age indicator. However, when we start to consider the older tangguh classifications it is perhaps best to simply acknowledge that these keris are old keris, and not couple the tangguh with any concept of actual time. In Jawa you will find some people who will swear that tangguh Majapahit means that that keris was made during the Majapahit era. You will find others --- others who are extremely knowledgeable ahli keris --- who will say "tangguh nggak sungguh". To really understand the keris from a Javanese perspective it is absolutely essential to understand how the tangguh system works, and how to apply it. Regretably, the only way to gain this knowledge is to find somebody in Jawa who is prepared to teach you, and who has access to plenty of examples. Then give half a lifetime to the study. For anybody outside Javanese society the best that can be hoped for is to gain a small understanding of the theory applied to reaching a classification.This theory really precludes the application of the system to lower quality pieces, but as I have already said, very few, if any , people use this system now as it was intended to be used. However, there is one thing that is true:- anybody who gives a tangguh classification to a blade must be able to support his opinion with reasoned argument by reference to the indicators he has used. Far too often a person will say that a blade is tangguh such and such, and when pressed for his reason for saying this the best he can do is to simply say something like "because its looks like such and such". This is just not good enough. However, this failure to provide reasoned argument is precisely what allows half educated "experts" to give tangguh to village quality blades. If you stick with the indicators it is virtually impossible to classify a low quality piece within the tangguh structure.