Interesting keris sold on E-bay
 

Some time ago this keris was sold on e-bay. I am curious what you think about. I have no clue from where exactly this unusual keris. Here the pictures from the seller.

Interesting, to my untrained (and ignorant) eye, the scabbard reminds me of something Patani, peninsular Malay, and the selut looks Bugis. Was this a mix of influences or parts? What am I missing?

I get a Sumatran impression from the blade itself ; an observation only FWIW . :confused: :shrug:

I admit to ignorance of the finer points of this ensemble .

the blade is called "charita", said to be from Pattani / northern Peninsula. The sheath looks like coteng, also from Southern Thailand / Singgora area....

It's a coteng keris body with a jawa demam hilt. :) Though a bit mismatched, the parts are very nice. :)

:eek:
The whole keris seems very nice (and old) in all components
Congraturation :) :D

Hello Marco,

unfortunately I am not the happy winner of the auction! :mad: :(

Thank you Penangsang and Kai Wee for decree the origin of this very nice keris.

Someone have a clue what happened with the sheat? Is it an old repair?

I don't think its a repair.

I have seen a lot of Sumatran scabbards made in this way, mostly rencong scabbards.

One of the quirks we observed to coteng sheaths is that the sheath is often of two-piece construction, and the split is strangely right in the middle of the sheath, sometimes, right through the sampir. Why it is done like that is anybody's guess...

This one is a bit strange, the 'split starts from one part of the batang only.

It is indeed a mismatch. Hilt is Jawa Demam form (pattani's region) and it's made from hardwood - kenaung, pendokok was a bugis form. Blade is a pattani's carita. The sheath was made with 1 piece of wood. It was cut due to the rust / gung build up inside the batang end that hinder the blade to be housed out, suspect it was cut to release the blade.
Original coteng hilt was removed - suspect a coteng of a silver media removed for previous owner collection. Sheath was belief to be made from sena wood.

I am with Mr. Maisey on this one.
Rentjong scabbards are often made this way.
I think the scabbard is constructed this way and not a repair.

Nice scabbard by the way.

I agree on the rencong scabbards, as I do have examples of it. But as far as keris sheaths are concerned, there are those which uses a centre split shaft (batang). The sheath normally uses a two-part ensemble, as what Kai Wee mentioned.. the upper cross-piece (sampir) and the shaft (batang), not from a one-piece 'gandar iras', like this example.. As for this strange split, your guess is as good as mine.. ;)

I've seen these mostly on Riau examples, where the joints are exactly at the centre, from the start of the batang, all the way to the end-piece.