East Javanese Keris(es) - Discussion

[A. G. Maisey]

On the subject of kagok capu.

In real life, on the ground, in Solo, we might refer to these as kagok, as capu, as kagok capu, or as capu muda.

There is slight variation in form between capu muda and kagok capu, and there is slight variation in form between CK from Solo and CK from Madura, also slight variation between these two "leaders", and the other places that use this overall form, those other places are just about anywhere that is not under direct influence of a kraton, places like along the north coast, Madiun etc, etc, etc.

In Solo this form used to be a form favoured by older men. The actual name "capu kagok" is not particularly flattering it implies roundness and clumsiness --- possibly something that we more senior people have in ample quantities.

There may be somebody who can positively identify variation between these intermingled forms, but I've never met him, or anybody who knows him. Thus, if we encounter this form we tend to just label it as CK, even though it might strictly be something else. If it has a wooden gandar it will probably get labelled Maduro, if a pendok, especially a Solo or Jateng pendok it will get labelled as Solo, but then if that Solo outfit has a Maduro wilah there will be an about face and it will be a Maduro deal. If there are no definite indicators you start to look a little harder and little more critically until you eliminate everything except a couple or three choices, and then you flip a coin.

However, let me make this point:- it is in my experience only hobbyist collectors outside of Jawa who are particularly concerned about this ID of dress. In Jawa itself it is something of academic interest but certainly not a matter of any importance, what is important is the classification of the blade and the overall quality of workmanship and material.

Why is it so?

Because as with any investment vehicle it is the bottom line that counts:-

how much is it worth?

what the entire keris is worth is based upon classification of the wilah and overall quality of workmanship.

The dress only has substantial value if it is of excellent quality.

The wilah only has substantial value if it has excellent quality, the degree of value then is determined primarily by tangguh.

What we're talking here is Javanese standards, and these are standards that are ingrained into the keris market in Central Jawa, and into the students and collectors of keris in Central Jawa. What goes on outsaide Jateng might as well be going on in outer space as far as people in Central Jawa are concerned. This idea of classification based on origin of dress is vaguely interesting, but it is totally unimportant to the real world, because the real world is based on money. Money is something that Javanese people understand very, very well.

What we're involved in with this thread, and the concept at its foundations is something that I regard as a wholly outside of Jawa attitude. I say "outside of Jawa", because this attitude seems to be prevalent with collectors in Jakarta too.

The questions that Yuuzan has raised are undoubtedly valid questions to his mind, and probably to the minds of others who engage in our discussions here, but for me, these are all very much side issues and frankly not something I ever give much thought to. When I look at any keris, the first thing that enters my mind is the quality question:- am I looking something of quality, or am I looking at a piece of garbage? Only later, sometimes much later, will I begin to note indicators that might give some indication of geographic point of origin.

When we engage in the tangguh game, one of the first things that we look at is the gonjo, not just the sirah cecak which is a very important indicator, but also the angle of the top of the gonjo. Have a look at post #9. Unquestionably Jateng. Why? Look at the top of the gonjo. A Jateng wilah matches the curve in a wrongko virtually always. A Wilah from the west, or the east, or most particularly from Maduro is very often flat, thin ugly. This #9 wilah is a poor copy of a M'ram keris --- well, it is still M'ram, but not what it might look like. It has characteristics of M'ram SA, but very much more coarse. In the markets in Jateng most salesmen would try to pass it off as M'ram SA. But its not. Its most likely Koripan, might be Godean, might be something else, but what I can see in the pic says Koripan.It sure ain't M'ram SA.

Look at the 7 luk wilah in the mamas SW. You will never, ever see a straight ugly gonjo like this on a Central Jawa blade. So where is it from? Jatim wr., Maduro style pamor --- if it looks like a duck it most probably is one, especially when we know with certainty that it sure ain't a rooster.

Jean considers I've floated some "interesting" opinions. I don't think so. What I've done is put in writing the sort of first impressions that anybody who understands this game would probably form. Minor variations perhaps, but the rules of the game are pretty well known, well, at least in Jawa they are, and if you have a few people with similar levels of knowledge, the disagreement is mostly in the detail, not in the big picture.After a while, this ID business becomes second nature, you don't really think too much about it, you look at something and it fits the template in your mind, but then you should be able to explain why it fits the template, and this is something that a lot of people cannot do.

[Jean]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Jean considers I've floated some "interesting" opinions. I don't think so.

Hello Alan,
Sorry, rather than "interesting" I rather meant "valuable" because I personally learnt something new and useful, and I believe that most of the members also! Thank you for your continuous and vital support to this forum and have a pleasant trip to Solo!
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for your good wishes Jean.

My "first impressions" was done by glancing quickly at the keris, going into the writing page and scribbling down what I thought I saw, then going backwards and forwards using the 'edit' function..

My idea was that I'd shoot from the hip and then later, as I had time, come back and look carefully one by one at each pic and see if there was enough information in the image for me to analyse. My analysis could produce something different to my first impression. Maybe by laying out the process of classification it would be possible to understand my approach and this could help others when trying to come to a decision about something.

I've already said that I don't think this classification thing is all that important, but my views are slanted in a particular direction, and I do acknowledge that the views of others are often different.

I've got one more "first impression" and that is post #7:-

north coast; the blade might check out as Tuban-M'ram---declining gonjo, square blumbangan, but I cannot see the other things I need :- sirah cecak, is there an ada-ada or not?, material, the gambar (atasan) of the wrongko is not Solo workmanship, and it does look very like a couple I've seen that were positively identified as North Coast, the hilt looks North Coast.

This one was done a bit slower than yesterday --- probably because I'm still drinking my morning coffee, but its still a first impression.

[A. G. Maisey]

One of the things I do when I look carefully at a keris that is in a photo is to run that photo through Photoshop, alter contrast and brightness levels, crop a section of the image and increase size to what it will bear, sharpen. Often, but not always I use a big magnifying glass to look at the screen image.Sometimes, but not always it is possible to see more from a photo by doing this.
I've just tried it with Jean's first photo and I've finished up with an image that I cannot open, even though it was saved as JPG.

So any comments on Jean's photos will be made on only the basis of what I can see on the screen. I use a 13.5X10.5 screen.

keris #1. post 8.

I believe close examination would show this blade to be a robahan, that is, a blade that has been altered.
The carving at the gandhik is not something that I recognise as an old motif, it looks crisp, and I feel that microscopic examination might show a patch welded into this part of the blade. This patch might have been made from the original gonjo, as the present gonjo looks as if it might be a replacement.

Stylistically this blade looks Majapahit, but it is most definitely not Majapahit. The material looks a bit like Gresik, if it is Gresik it will have a slightly greasy feel to the pamor material, if its not Gresik then I cannot classify and substantiate as it does not appear to fit a major strand, and it has probably been altered anyway. My gut feeling is something done for the trade and originating around Surabaya.

The overall look of the wrongko , with all that nicely patterned wood, is what I think of as East Jawa, but the "S" shaped line that runs down the front of the gambar is a line that I have seen identified with Banyumas by people who know a lot more than I do, however, most Banyumas wrongkos that I've actually handled have been fitted with pendok. This is where we get into difficulties, and the reason is this:-

in a karaton setting the forms are fairly strictly structured and identified for use by whom and when, but when we move away from a karaton into a small town, or a village, that structure disappears and we have a situation where the form of the wrongko is limited by the skill of the carver and by the desires of the customer. Thus, when we try to classify these wrongko forms and styles that lack the guiding hand of tradition and authority, we are in a situation where we do not have guidelines that permit supportable identification of point of geographic origin.

Collectors like to, maybe need to, classify, but when we cannot support a classification what is the point?

We can certainly classify broadly:- Jawa, Bali, Bugis. But when we look at 50 wrongkos by 50 different pairs of hands in 50 different locations, how can we possibly classify? Under these conditions maybe the best we can do is what I did yesterday:- form a quick first impression.

Or, we could go the way that I've seen a lot of people go in Solo:- for a blade --- "outside Jawa", for dress--- "outside Surakarta, not Jogja"; what is left unsaid is "well, its not of any importance anyway, because its not from anywhere that counts, so who cares?"

The Javanese attitude to keris is just a wee bit different to the attitude of collectors outside Jawa who give equal importance to every keris, no matter what it is, or where its from.

Anyway, coming back to post 8 keris #1.

From what I can see, the blade has been played with and made more attractive; the blade and the wrongko are unlikely to be an original mating; my feeling is that I'm looking at a dealer's montage , but one put together with a great deal of care and expertise, possibly the wrongko was obtained first, then a suitable blade was found, the blade "improvement" was done, the gonjo was made so that it exceeded the size of the wrongko hole, which was probably small to begin with. I doubt that this was done recently. I think that this sort of alteration probably stopped in the 1960's early 1970's. I only ever knew one man who could do this sort of thing well, and he died years ago, probably well into his 80's --- he always reckoned he was the same age as myself, but the fact of the matter is that he didn't know when he was born. He lived in Jogja.

So, an old alteration, bit of a mixture, but the blade is stylistically Majapahit, and the impression of the wrongko, principally because of the very attractive wood, is East Jawa. A collector's keris rather than a keris that we can positively link to a specific local geographic area. I'd be happy with a classification of simply "Jawa" for this keris, because I cannot really substantiate anything more detailed, but again, my first impression is East Jawa.


See how confusing this game can get?

I'll look slow and careful at another keris when I have another hour to spare.

[Gustav]

Regarding Wrongko of post 8 #1, I have a feeling, also Gambar and Gandar perhaps don't really match together. The joint between them looks stiff to me, due to difference in size (at the joint line ) and color (dark Wrongko-light Gandar at the joint) and perhaps the position of the joint line itself (a little bit kaku).

For me as an absolute "bloke" difficult to say, if it's due to my limited personal taste, used in wrong place, or due of a possible "peripheral", less careful taste of the Mranggi. Yet I suppose, a person, who originally choses such beautiful piece of wood for Gambar would more carefully chose the matching Gandar.

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Gustav, you're right, in the photo they do appear to be strangers to one another, but I did not want to comment on this because I could not Photoshop the image to try to help me see the details that are less than clear:- this appearance of uneven mating could be due to dark wood at the edges of the foot of the atasan.

[Jean]

Hello Alan and Gustav,
Thanks for your detailed evaluation of my kris, I will post more detailed pictures of the sor-soran, ganja, and sheath joint later today if the weather permits and will add my visual observations.
Jut for reference I acquired this piece in 1995 from an antique shop in Balikpapan (East Kalimantan); the piece was probably brought there by a Javanese or Madurese transmigration worker and it was originally fitted with an old Madurese hilt.
Best regards