keris for comment

[Jean]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Yes Jean, it is the outer "skin" of the tusk, or at least this is what I have been told by carvers in both Solo and Bali.

Thank you Alan. This is very detrimental to the aspect of the wrangka, can it be corrected without having to sand it according to your experience?
Regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, my experience in this area is nil.

However, my uninformed opinion is that if we were to try to sand it out, we would destroy the flow of the wrongko, this darkness is on the reverse side of the atasan anyway; personally, I don't think it looks too bad. I'd simply accept it as a feature of the particular keris, neither desirable nor undesirable.

[Jean]

Thank you Alan. If I ever face such a situation, I would try to whiten the ivory by applying a concentrated hydrogen peroxyde solution.
Regards

[GIO]

IMVHO the hilt is not ivory but buffalo horn. The tranlucent aspect occurs frequently in such material. A hilt with same material and very similar color was shown recently on ebay. As to the origin I think that Lombok is an acceptable option.

[David]

I agree GIO. Though the photos are not very good to begin with it doesn't look much like ivory to be despite Mamat Lombak's insistence that it is. Not sure he is still around to clarify his comments though. I still find this a lovely ensemble and would be satisfied to call it Lombok as well.

[Paul B.]

The brown deteriorated colour is a good age sign or is the conclusion to easy as a wrangka could also be made of an old piece of ivory but recently carved ?

[GIO]

Originally Posted by Paul B.

The brown deteriorated colour is a good age sign or is the conclusion to easy as a wrangka could also be made of an old piece of ivory but recently carved ?

I think that the brown stripe has nothing to do with age. It was certainly already present in the exterior layer of ivory when the poor elephant was still alive.