a Sengkelat worth of knowing to me

[A. G. Maisey]

Look very closely at the joint between the gonjo and the base of the blade, especially directly under the pesi, now look at the degree of erosion to the greneng.

Draw your own conclusions.

[Moshah]

I really couldn't tell if the pendok is really suassa...how to test it?

If the gonjo was a replacement, was it recently made?

Under my untrained eyes, the besi of the blade looks identical to the besi of the gonjo...

[Rick]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Look very closely at the joint between the gonjo and the base of the blade, especially directly under the pesi, now look at the degree of erosion to the greneng.

Draw your own conclusions.

What I see is very little erosion to the greneng, and what looks like filler between the blade & gonjo .

[dbhmgb]

Originally Posted by Rick

What I see is very little erosion to the greneng, and what looks like filler between the blade & gonjo .

That's what I see.

[drdavid]

The greneng seems very clean. The junction of the base of blade and gonjo seems to show quite a lot more erosion, particularly when you look at the 4th photo. I see either there is filler or something else has happened to remove the layering on the base of the blade. Not so easy to judge given the focus on the pictures but the erosion on the kembang kacang is more like that on the blade than that of the greneng
drd

[A. G. Maisey]

Since epoxy resins became available in Jawa they have been mixed with iron filings and used on keris to fill the gap between the blade base and the gonjo. This was being done long before the keris revival that took place in the mid-1970's and the prolific production that commenced during the late 1980's and continues until today.

There is nothing wrong with a filler between the gonjo and the blade base.

Its original use was to preserve old keris and to protect the blade base and gonjo from further erosion. With current era keris its use has a similar purpose, but where filler is used in a recent keris, it should be as thin as possible, it should not be used as substitute for a poor fit.

In this keris there is very little erosion to any of the ricikan, and especially not to the greneng, but the gap between the gonjo and the blade base is what we could expect to see in a very old keris that had been neglected. Since this is not an old keris, what we are looking at is sub-standard workmanship.

This is quite an acceptable keris for use with formal Javanese dress, and the wrongko does appear to be very nice. As a collectable? We all have our own likes and dislikes.

[Moshah]

In other words, we can say this keris is newly made, alan?

It is not that I despise newly made keris, but as I try to grow my collection, I would really need to know which is which, hence I can have a really good look at examples such as a true old kerises, a newly made kerises sold as new, a newly made kerises deceived to be old kerises, and so on...

The understanding of metallurgy, especially for Javanese kerises is something I really lacking of, nor that I have nice examples to teach which is good or bad

[A. G. Maisey]

Based upon what I can see in these photos it is my opinion that this is current era keris.