A Balinese (?)keris for identification please

[SidJ]

I have now received the keris and having checked it carefully I can confirm the Atasan is made of ivory and not bone. I am unsure if this necessitates any reappraisal of the age of the dress or not.

[David]

Originally Posted by SidJ

I have now received the keris and having checked it carefully I can confirm the Atasan is made of ivory and not bone. I am unsure if this necessitates any reappraisal of the age of the dress or not.

Personally i never thought it was bone, but i could not see any evidence of Elephant ivory (Schreger lines). Now that you have it in hand can you tell what type of ivory it might be? I'm not sure how much adjustment there would be to the age of the dress. It does seem newer than the blade and 20th century. Likely post-WWII, but it is still hard to tell from the seller's photos. The atasan does seem a little stiff in it's form which might point more to a later date than earlier. But these photos are all from odd angles. Maybe you could post some new images now that it is in your possession.

[SidJ]

Pics of the keris

[SidJ]

Hi David,
I can see Schreger lines and therefore conclude it is elephant ivory

[SidJ]

pic

[David]

Originally Posted by SidJ

Hi David,
I can see Schreger lines and therefore conclude it is elephant ivory

Thanks Sid. I saw these pics on the FB thread. I could see the Schreger lines there. Clearly elephant ivory. You might need a larger imager to convince the doubters here though.

[A. G. Maisey]

Looks like you had a win Sid --- well, sort of a win.

The problems surrounding ivory these days mean that if you ever want or need to sell this keris your market is very limited.

I have some truly beautiful ivory pieces, not only keris related, and I would like to move them to new homes before I get a promotion, but I do not think that will ever happen --- new homes for the ivory I mean.

[SidJ]

Thanks Alan,
I wont be selling it. I will pass on the liability to my children to deal with after I am promoted (or more likely demoted). Interestingly, this piece was the last ivory item the auction house sold before calling time on ivory sales in line with the new ban that comes into effect in the UK very soon in early June.

[A. G. Maisey]

Sid, I will not say that you are incorrect, nor that your intentions might not come to pass, but I will pass on a little bit of personal history.

My interest in keris began at a very young age, I was about 5 or 6 years old when I used to visit my mother's aunt together with my mother & grandmother. My mother's aunt's son had married a Malay lady and was living in Malaya -- as it then was --- he sent small gifts to his mother, one of which was a keris. I really, really wanted that keris.

I never got it, but I did get a collection of edged weapons, including keris, that my grandfather gave me at age 12.

By about age 30 I had an accumulation --- I hesitate to call it a collection --- of keris and keris related parts that numbered around 3000 items. I was pretty ignorant back then and I had the objective of owning every keris I encountered --- maybe every keris that ever was.

By about age 40 I had begun to gain a little bit of knowledge & my accumulation had turned into a collection of around 40 reasonably OK keris, all the other keris & keris related bits & pieces had been put through Sydney auctions.

From that point until now the size of my collection has increased and decreased depending mostly upon the need to get rid of some things in order to acquire other things.

Currently and for a few years past I have been decreasing my collection so that when Siwa pulls my number out of the hat my kids will not have to get rid of objects about which they know nothing.

Now, I do have quite a few very fine quality keris that contain ivory, and something more than 200 ivory hilts a few of which are exceptional. The only avenue open to me for sale of these ivory items is local small auction houses, I cannot send any of these ivory pieces out of Australia.

This is not an ideal situation.

Do you intend to live forever, or like a very good friend of mine who moved into the Hidden World a few years ago, when he was asked what would happen to his collection when he moved on, he replied that he intended to take it with him.

That, of course, did not happen; his heirs put it all to auction where it did not achieve the prices that it could have achieved if he had offered it for sale when he was still here.

[Anthony G.]

Originally Posted by SidJ

Pics of the keris

Nice ivory warangka. Congrats!