Advice on another keris

[adamb]

Hello again,

I was gifted this keris when in Makassar. The person who gave it to me did not know much about it, other than that it was from Java or Bali and that the figural motif in the handle is a representation of Ganesha.

The blade is very thin and when it is being removed from the warangka or 'dinged' with one's finger it makes a pleasing ringing sound, which I'm told is a sign of quality.

Any insight/opinions on the characteristics of this keris much welcome.

Am I right that it is Javanese?

Cheers

[David]

Hi Adam and welcome to the forum.
The blade, wrongko and mendhak all appear to be Javanese to me. The Ganesha hilt is most certainly Balinese. If this were mine i would replace the hilt with a basic planar style Javanese hilt like i show below and maybe just display the Balinese hilt, which seems a fair mid-late 20th century carving.
The blade is not old IMHO and show an Udan Mas, or Golden Rain pamor.

[adamb]

Thank you David, your insight, and advice, much appreciated.

Best wishes
Adam

[jagabuwana]

Interesting blade for me to think about.

I see a very beefy blade with a blumbangan boto rubuh (but arguably square) and a short sirah cecak profile.

Perhaps naively I would have placed this as North Coast, but something about the pamor and overall impression makes me wonder if it's kamardikan.

What are we thinking?

[David]

Originally Posted by jagabuwana

Interesting blade for me to think about.

I see a very beefy blade with a blumbangan boto rubuh (but arguably square) and a short sirah cecak profile.

Perhaps naively I would have placed this as North Coast, but something about the pamor and overall impression makes me wonder if it's kamardikan.

What are we thinking?

I thought so as well.

[milandro]

I would say this is a Kamardikan blade.

Incidentally, I see lots of blades with Udan Mas pamor being marketd in recent times and , at least in the NL, they are popular among traders because the market responds very favourably to it.

I know of at least one trader who targets this pamor in particular.

The hilt, very nice by the way, is as others have said, incongruous to the Kris, it is Balinese while the rest isn't. I'd replace it and keep the hilt for another Balinese kris with a lesser hilt than this and replace it with this nice specimen.


Well done!

[Gustav]

There is a possibility this is a reworked older blade. It is not uncommon to take an older blade with Pamor Wos Wutah and change it to a blade with the "wealth bringing" Pamor Udan Man. Such altered blades are very thin.

I am not sure about that, but I think I also see an indicator the blade was reheated at some point.

[adamb]

Originally Posted by milandro

I would say this is a Kamardikan blade.

Incidentally, I see lots of blades with Udan Mas pamor being marketd in recent times and , at least in the NL, they are popular among traders because the market responds very favourably to it.

I know of at least one trader who targets this pamor in particular.

The hilt, very nice by the way, is as others have said, incongruous to the Kris, it is Balinese while the rest isn't. I'd replace it and keep the hilt for another Balinese kris with a lesser hilt than this and replace it with this nice specimen.


Well done!

Thank you milandro.

[adamb]

Originally Posted by Gustav

There is a possibility this is a reworked older blade. It is not uncommon to take an older blade with Pamor Wos Wutah and change it to a blade with the "wealth bringing" Pamor Udan Man. Such altered blades are very thin.

I am not sure about that, but I think I also see an indicator the blade was reheated at some point.

Thank you Gustav; this is a very interesting observation. So if an older blade has been reworked/altered to introduce a new (or complementary) pamor pattern one of the telltale indicators would be a thinner blade? So you see remnants of the older pamor pattern that has been overlaid by the Udan Mas? May I ask what other trait(s) you see on the blade that might indicate it is has been altered in this way? Thanks

[Gustav]

Adam, Pamor Udan Mas basically is a surface manipulation of a Pamor Mlumah (horizontal Pamor layers, opposite to Pamor Miring, where the layers are arranged vertically). Pamor Mlumah with small number of layers will basically result in a Pamor called Ngulit Semangka. Pamor Mlumah with higher number of layers will result in Pamor Wos Wutah. Pamor Udan Mas basically is a further manipulation of Pamor Wos Wutah, by drilling holes in it, and forging the blade flat again. For such operation a substantial, thick blade is needed, like Tangguh Tuban, because blade will loose thickness.

One indicator of a reheated blade could be the gap between the Slorok (core of blade, visible as the edge) and the first Pamor layer.

[adamb]

Originally Posted by Gustav

Adam, Pamor Udan Mas basically is a surface manipulation of a Pamor Mlumah (horizontal Pamor layers, opposite to Pamor Miring, where the layers are arranged vertically). Pamor Mlumah with small number of layers will basically result in a Pamor called Ngulit Semangka. Pamor Mlumah with higher number of layers will result in Pamor Wos Wutah. Pamor Udan Mas basically is a further manipulation of Pamor Wos Wutah, by drilling holes in it, and forging the blade flat again. For such operation a substantial, thick blade is needed, like Tangguh Tuban, because blade will loose thickness.

One indicator of a reheated blade could be the gap between the Slorok (core of blade, visible as the edge) and the first Pamor layer.

This is fascinating insight, thank you Gustav; perhaps this would explain why another of my kerises - the subject of my first post - seems to have a tangguh tuban-pajajaran (according to Mr. Maisey) coupled with Udan Mas pamor, which Mr Maisey said was unexpected for such a tangguh classification- if I have understood him correctly. Perhaps this is also a reworked blade…it is also extremely thin

[milandro]

very interesting and very preoccupying this information about the possibility that an older blade may be reforged adding a raindrop Damascus pattern which is what the western called something that looks like the udan mas pamor .

This would explain why I have noticed, at the very least in the NL, that there is a relative disproportionate number of udan mas krises appearing on the market lately.

I have to say that, if this is indeed the case, this shows , once again that even the remotest possibility to make an extra buck has become, in the kris market scene, the chance for unscrupulous vendors to do all manner of weird things.

So, there are a lot of so called river finds videos showing more or less disintegrated krises being fished out of the waters in Indonesia, these are quite obviously been immersed in acid and then marketed as antiques.

On another thread someone showed a Sundang Kris with an pamored insert of some sort , I asked then if this was a thin layer of material applied to the blade and lo and behold on Aliexpress you can buy pieces of more or less thin metal with Damascus patterns which may very well serve the purpose of being used to make an otherwise less interesting blade into a much nicer example, then makes the insert look older and a new product is born.

Forgeries are of all times and technology only makes them easier and more believable.

[jagabuwana]

Yes Milandro, forgery is rife and unfortunately there'll never be a shortage of supply.

But I don't think we can consider a blade being reworked for resale as a forgery. I suspect that it's always been the case that the keris (blade, accoutrements and all) have been reworked, repaired or otherwise made more attractive for resale purposes. I personally don't see an issue with this.

Those river finds on the other hand... For the quantity being found and sold you'd think people were dragging it with industrial sized nets and just hauling comical amounts of 'treasure'. El Dorado!

[milandro]

Perhaps not born a forgery but changing an original to enhance the sale possibilities by adding something AND not disclosing it to a buyer is certainly objectionable.

I see plenty of krises for sale claiming to be ancient when they very likely are not


Anyway, maybe OP's kris was born that way, we will most probably never know.

[SidJ]

Forgive the tangential digression but I could not resist responding to the river find keris racket we see at present. It seems that there are folk who try to utilise high school science of anaerobic conditions in the Indonesian rivers they come from added in with historical accounts of battles explaining why these are found on river bottoms in industrial quantities and such wonderful condition! There's a whole industry based around this sham it seems. I'm sure there are real ones out there but most seem fake and that taints the good ones.