Now I have a Tajong!!
 

Dear members,

now I have a good Tajong (I think and hope like this) and this by a price for a weekend shopping in the supermarket! :)

Until now I have only the pictures from the seller (not good at all) but I will post pictures when I have the keris in my hands.

Would be nice to read what you think about.

Best, Detlef

Congrats. A type of keris i would certainly like to add to my collection eventually.
Hard to make any comment based on these photos. I hope your gamble pays off. :)

Congratulations, Sajen. :)

This is indeed a good old tajong. With a bit of tender loving care, I'm sure it will look glorious. :) I especially love the sheath - I suspect there is good grain under all that gunk. The shape is just so lovely. :)

Thank you David, yes it is definitely a gamble by this pictures but what I can see it's all old and in correct shape. Hope that I win this time the gamble! :D

Thank you Kai Wee, it's good to read this! ;) :cool: Yes, I also love the sheat and it seems that nothing is broken. It will look nice after some restore work. All what I still need is a proper pendokok. What's funny is that the seller told me that he have bought it 1969 on Bali in an antique shop. :confused:

Regards,

Detlef

Was the nose covered in metal?

Hello Jose,

I don't know until now, the keris was listed in german e-bay and the seller finished the auction after my offer. The seller thought that it is a balinese keris, so I don't ask further questions. It has been a cheap bargain and it will be an extra when the nose is covered in metal. ;)

Congrats, Detlef!

Also looks genuine to me; nothing which would hint at the dreaded Bali fake "antiques"...

If you're not frequenting very expensive supermarkets, the apparently undamaged scabbard alone will be worth it (looks very nice!) and everything else being a bonus. ;) Make sure the package gets wrapped well to protect the wooden fittings from damage!

Am looking forward to seeing close-ups of the (19th c.?) hilt! Obtaining a good pendokok from Malaysia should be possible.

The tip of the blade seems to have suffered from extensive corrosion - still better having the original blade rather than a modern replacement, I guess.

Regards,
Kai

Thank's Kai, I think aside from this that they don't sell fakes in the late sixties.

The supermarkets I used to visit are not expensiv but I have two children; still I think it's a bargain. And the wrapping order for the seller have been detailed. ;)

Hope it will be possible to obtain a nice pendokok.

Pictures will follow when I have it in my own hands.

Regards,
Detlef

Congratulations! Looks like a nice piece.. The pendokok can be custom-made if you wish. Make a mould of the base area (buah pinang) of the hilt. It would be good enough to make a custom-fit pendokok. :) There's quite a few designs to choose from. Later, close-up pictures of the blade base and tip, would be nice.. ;)

Hello Alam, thank's.:) I will contact you again when I have the keris by pm to get further informations. Of course I will post better pictures after I have received the keris.

Regards,

Detlef

Yesterday I received the keris. The hilt was broken and reglued by someone without skill. The nose is a replacement from longer before done by someone with better skill but not perfect. When I look to "Spirit of Wood" I believe that the hilt is from the middle of the 19th c and I think that all belong together; so I think that the keris orginate from this time. What do you think? The sheat is heavy patinated and have only a very small old chip at one of the beaks. The blade have old patinated corrosion and is suffered by corrosion like Kai have supposed.
All comments are welcome, special for restoration tips I am grateful.

More pictures:

Hello Detlef,

I hope the experts will join in for dating. I see some genuine wear and can relate to the suggested age - have been wrong before though... ;)


The scabbard is the real prize here, IMHO. Very nice old piece - a bit of cleaning and some wax will probably do. I'd take it for the price any day... ;)

From the pics, I'm not convinced that the scabbard was made for the blade though - fit seems ok but has some gaps. A gentle pineapple juice cleaning will help stopping active rust (the tip of the blade is corroded enough that this won't make it look worse); I don't think it's worth to repolish the blade since the tip area can't be restored to a traditional shape. I'd keep it as an ol' piece of history. BTW, the wire is only there to hold the hulu, isn't it? (If so, I'd remove it...)

I'm not sure wether redoing the glued hilt would be a good idea - may be less prone to additional cracking if you just cover the glue with some hard wax of a corresponding color. Regluing the beak may be more feasible though. However, since the wood doesn't correspond to the hulu, a possible strategy would be covering it with gold foil? (Suasa would be traditional but expensive.)

All in all, I believe this old piece will look nice when displayed sheathed with an added pendokok.

Regards,
Kai

I do not recommend touching the hilt unless you are very handy at woodworking. And even then, what I'd recommend is to just fill in the gap between the face and the nose with wood filler. Given the close proximity to the face, I thought you may have to carefully break the nose to do a clean job.

Sheath-wise, the gunk can be cleaned with a very diluted dishwashing liquid and steelwool. Be careful not to overclean it and take off too much of the old finish.

Blade is already pretty corroded. Maybe a stop-rust strategy might be better than to really clean off the rust?

The sheat I will clean careful with steelwool and it will get a new cover with shellac to give it back a primal glory. The blade I try to clean careful from corrosion. The hilt I clean already careful and I was able to open the nose without break and I think that I can reglue it better. Is this an "original" repair from the nose (see the pictures)?

Yes, this is a traditional way to repair missing noses in tajong hilts. Looks like this was done professionally a while back.

The hilt looks 'thirsty'. I think it would do well with some wood oil. :) It's a good hilt.

Some of my tajong hilts have deep cracks through the hilt, one even has a partially repaired buah pinang (60% of the original gone). So it is quite common to see old tajong hilts with some form of damage.

Hello Kai Wee,

first of all thank you very much for all your knowledge help. So this repair is an old one. I will look that the reglue will be done more unvisible. The hilt look "thirsty" because I just cleaned it before I take the picture. It will be oiled after I have reglued the nose. :)
Do you able to estimate the age of the hilt? I have had a look to "Spirit of Wood" and think that the hilt is from the middle of the 19th c. :confused::shrug:

Regards,

Detlef

One of the tricks of the trade in the furniture restoration business is to moisten a small pad of cloth with gum turpentine and using car polish you polish off the filth on old french polished, shellaced or varnished surfaces.

You can get a quicker result if you use 0000 steel wool , and also if you use a clean and polish paste rather than just a polish paste, but you then run the risk of going through the finish. Its best to stay with a cloth rubber unless you are sure that you have a thick layer of old shellac or varnish.

The interior timber fittings in many of the historic homes in Australia have been brought back to an acceptable condition by the use of this technique.

Thank you Alan,

I have followed your advice and the result is a great one. Tomorrow I will post some pictures from the sheat; it look beautiful now.

Regards,

Detlef

Glad it worked for you Detlef.

Here the pictures from the cleaned sheat.

NICE work :)

Thank's Marco! :)

I agree very nice work on the sheath - looks completely different! :)

Detlef, congratulations on your first tajong. Mind you, they're addictive but unfortunately not easy to find.

You have found yourself an example of a fairly early vintage. According to Nik Din's classification system I would say closer to late 18th c than early 19th. In fact I rather doubt that the hilt is original to the sheath because the sheath is, while old, probably not as old as the hilt is. Which isn't saying much since very few of the sheaths contemporaneous to this hilt style have survived. Sheaths were replaced out of hand while hilts were at least somewhat more cherished.

I find the wood used to be most curious as well. It is not at all typical of what was normally used. It looks a bit like a type of wood called kayu jahar, which is a type of kampung wood (meaning it is grown in the village and is rarely found in the "wild"). It is rarely used in kerises although one does find it very occasionally used for the batang of keris or other dagger sheaths. Only the teras (core) is any good - the outer wood is weak and prone to cracking or breaking. I've never seen it used for a hilt before. Whatever it is it clearly is not too resistant to cracking so you should take extra care not to expose it stresses - extreme dryness of humidity, extreme or rapid changes of humidity or of temperature, putting the hilt on too tight etc.

It definitely was carved by a proper tukang though as it is correct in form and motifs but for some long lost reason he chose to use this unusual wood. Looks like a mystery. Some day I will print out pictures and bring them to show Nik Dee. Maybe he will have some insight into the wood.

Thank's Jose, I hope the other parts of the keris succeed in the same way. :)

Thank you Dave (I hope it's ok that I address you like this) for your comment.

I think that I am hooked on them already and my believe is that I never will get one again auspicious like this one. :D

I am encouraged by your dating of the hilt. The wood is nearly black and very heavy. My guess is that the body of the hilt break when the wire was attached to the pesi and the hilt was forcibly pressed on since the glue look recent. Maybe it happened by the prvious owner. :shrug:

Would be nice to read what Nik Dee think about the used wood.

Regards,

Detlef

The nose of the hilt is reglued and the big crack at the left side is filled with wood putty and at last the hilt is oiled with wood oil. The wood putty is on the pictures grey from the flash but in nature it is black and have nearly the same colour as the wood.

The blade is cleaned now and I have completed the keris again with an auxiliary-pendokok. Here the pictures.

Nice job Sajen. :)

Thank you David. :) I am very very happy with this keris and still can't believe how much luck I have had to get it. And I am thankful for all the good restore tips I have got. :)

HI Sajen,

Let me first say I really see you did it skillfull and seemly with pleasure.

The makeover however of the scabbard in special is something I really don't unterstand,what I should like ( but I'm not a keris collector!!) is just that enormous old patina on the scabbard ! :shrug:

Arjan

Arjan, I believe it was the dirt that Detlef has removed :p And all the real patina is still there :)

Tatyana is correct Arjan.

Patina on wood is defined as a shine or gloss that is produced by polishing over an extended period of time.

Dirt does not equal patina.

Once the dirt has been removed, then the true patina can be seen.

Patina is not very easy to define.

In some circles patina is seen as a (green) discoloration of metal, either caused by time, or by chemicals.

In ethnographic collecting patina is seen as all changes that come to an object during its life time. This also includes dirt.

For example, I can not imagine that you would take an old fetish statue from Congo and decide to gently remove the dirt in order to reveal its true patina :D

In this case my choice would have been to leave the dirt or at least some of it.

We all have our own preferences, true, but words do have a definite meaning, and that meaning is set down in dictionaries.

The original use of the word patina applied only to bronze, and described the usually green incrustation that old bronze can achieve, however as time passed this use was extended to other materials, in respect of patina as it applies to wood, the meaning is pretty much as I gave it:-

the gloss or sheen on wooden furniture produced by age and polishing (Oxford).

This is also the way in which the word "patina" is understood in the antique furniture trade, it is not just an empty dictionary definition.
In the English language use of the word dates from about 1750.

However, dirt is something different to patina:- dirt hides patina, it does not enhance it.

If we like dirt on something as evidence of its age, that is a personal preference, and I would never speak against personal preferences.

But dirt is not patina.

In respect of keris, we are dealing with an iconic cultural object.

It is in fact disrespectful to the spirit and inherited presence of a keris to leave it accomodated in dirty or inferior dress.

If we choose to retain the old dress that it is in when we acquire it, that old dress should be put into as good condition as is possible, out of respect for the keris. However, if the old dress has already deteriorated beyond a restorable state, then we should provide the keris with new clothes.

In my opinion Detlef has acted in exactly the right manner where the keris under discussion is concerned:- he has paid respect to the keris and he has sympathetically restored and cleaned the existing dress, which will ensure that it is preserved for the future.

Indeed in the case if it was only to remove dirt steel wool shouldn't be nessesary to get " a quicker result". Steel wool removes also surface scratches and more of the original patina than you want ( or not).
Patience is always the best in doing restorework course its mostly not reversable.

This is also the way in which the word "patina" is understood in the antique furniture trade, it is not just an empty dictionary definition.
In the English language use of the word dates from about 1750

Please don't compare ethnographic object with furniture !!!

The presence of patina on an ethnographic objects makes a big part of the prize. Any change/remove/cleaning of the object's patina will certainly lowere the value.

I am not enough into kerisses and haven't seen Sajens objects in real ( always difficult too see patina on pics only) to say what was the best in this case. All I know if that I have sold some Tajons in the past and I am sure that the clients who bought them ( but they are art collectors) whould not be interested if I should have polished them up with steel wool.
Gladly there are also keris collectors who doesn't mind.

One of the tricks of the trade in the furniture restoration business is to moisten a small pad of cloth with gum turpentine and using car polish you polish off the filth on old french polished, shellaced or varnished surfaces.

You can get a quicker result if you use 0000 steel wool , and also if you use a clean and polish paste rather than just a polish paste, but you then run the risk of going through the finish

.