Frey Collection Picit

[David]

Originally Posted by Battara

I handled this piece in Baltimore. The patina on the pendok looked like gilded silver to me, but after a long time and if it is lower gold, I suppose it could be like a 14k.

Also the hulu came off in my hand - attached at all. But this is an easy fix.

A nice piece.

Well, i couldn't say, though Frey does describe it in his description as "heavy gold". It wouldn't matter personally to me if it were in my collection, though i would image the heavy price it went for was at least partially driven by a significant amount of gold weight.
It's not at all surprising that the hulu was not tightly fixed. I believe a lot of collectors tend to keep their ivory hilts loose to avoid cracking them as they expand and contract with the weather. Not necessarily something that needs a fix.
A nice piece indeed though...

[rasdan]

I have doubts on several things about this keris. One of it is the "rainbow" effect on the pendok (circled red in the pic below), I think only seen on gilded silver.

Something does not seem right about this keris. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[David]

Originally Posted by rasdan

I have doubts on several things about this keris. One of it is the "rainbow" effect on the pendok (circled red in the pic below), I think only seen on gilded silver.

Something does not seem right about this keris. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Well Rasdan, i'm not sure what you mean about something not being "right" about this keris. If by some chance the pendok was gilded silver what would be "wrong" about that. However, these are not high quality photographs and i personally don't believe it is possible to tell, based on these photos alone, whether we have gilded silver of gold here. There are far too many factors that can affect a photo in this manner to be able to tell for sure. Frankly i'm far more interested in the blade than the material of the pendok. It was, apparently, part of Frey's personal collection for some time and he identifies the material as "heavy gold" so who knows. I would think an experienced researcher like Frey would know, but perhaps he made a false assumption and never bothered to test it. i don't find the keris any less interesting either way though.

[mariusgmioc]

Originally Posted by rasdan

I have doubts on several things about this keris. One of it is the "rainbow" effect on the pendok (circled red in the pic below), I think only seen on gilded silver.

Something does not seem right about this keris. Please correct me if I am wrong.

What is certain is that photos can be misleading, but if I were to judge it by the photo, I would agree that it certainly doesn't look like gold but like gilded silver. Even low karat gold (9 karat) from all what I know doesn't display this kind of patina.

PS: After carefully examining more photos, I noticed the "rainbow" patina doesn't show on all of them so it might just be a photo glitch.

[rasdan]

Sorry David, I was not being clear. Actually when I was saying something is not quite right, I meant with other factors that I considered. My mistake.

Edit: I edited my comment because I feel it is not very nice for me to say something about the keris that may raise issues. Sorry guys.

[mariusgmioc]

I know very little about kerises and I wonder how old this blade is?!

I would guess it is quite old.

[Jean]

To me this nice kris looks like to date from early to mid 20th century, I agree that the pendok & pendokok are most probably from gilt silver and not gold (it makes a huge difference on the price), and the hilt is not from walrus ivory.
Regards

[David]

Originally Posted by Jean

To me this nice kris looks like to date from early to mid 20th century, I agree that the pendok & pendokok are most probably from gilt silver and not gold (it makes a huge difference on the price), and the hilt is not from walrus ivory.
Regards

Jean, the description actually claims that the buntut is walrus ivory, not the hulu. And the hulu most certainly IS ivory of some sort, probably elephant. I would be seriously impressed if anyone here could accurately identify the type of ivory in that buntut from these photographs.
I really cannot speak further to gold issue. I just cannot tell from a photograph. I do know that the price it demanded seemed to accept it as solid gold and that Frey seems to present it as such. Since i was not the buyer this is of little concern to me though.
For me it is also simply not possible to determine the age of this keris based upon the photographs, though i do suspect the blade is older than 20th century.
Frankly gentlemen, i am surprised at the amount of nitpicking, but it's not mine so i certainly don't take it personally. Let's see what else we can find wrong with this beautiful keris. LOL!