Big size Antiques Bali Keris
 

just a part of my private collection with length 20 inch, any comments are welcome

The pamor is interesting .
I usually associate thinner lines with this type of keris . :confused:

















Probably showing my ignorance . :o

The Kembang Kacang Pogog Robyong (I apologise for using Javanese terms for a non-Javanese keris) looks to me like later reshaped from remnants of the original Kembang Kacang - becouse it's to small, also the features on it (jenggot?) are of completely other size (compare the Dha's) then on Greneng. Yet the Greneng itself is somewhat strange - Ron Dha Nunut is okay (the first Ri Pandan, if we call this feature so, is missing), yet at Gonjo side of it there is no Dha at all. These liberties in details, pamor work and probably the bigger size let me think more of Lombok then Bali.

[QUOTE=Rick]The pamor is interesting .
I usually associate thinner lines with this type of keris . :confused:



Dear Rick and Gustav.. more picture for detail

Has anybody considered the possibility that this gonjo is a replacement?

Have a look at the front of the gonjo, above the gandhik. This is clumsy work that lacks flow, it is inconceivable that this was carved by the same person who created the ricikan in the rest of the blade. Then there is the amateurish work in the greneng where it exists on the gonjo.

The blade point has been re-cut to buntut tumo.

Gustav, I'm not so sure that the kembang kacang has been re-shaped. Certainly it may have been, when we consider the other alteration work that has very probably been done, but if it has been re-carved, the original KK must have been very large, and if you add in the necessary transitional flows, a normal KK on this blade would have been much out of proportion.

On the other hand, the variation in surface textures of the KK and the blade surface alongside it do seem to indicate that there has been some fiddling going on in this area. I think that for me, this falls into the area where I would need to handle the blade before I declared myself one way or the other.

Yes Alan, I also thought of this posibility, also like you becouse of interrupted Gandhik line and strange Greneng. Yet the joint of blade and Gonjo at pidakan and tungkakan is not so bad, which would probably be more difficult to master. That's why I actually don't understand this fault at Gandhik. It is probably about 1mm or even smaller, yet very exposed.

I also noticed the differences of surface texture. I really thought, there could be the required place for a normal KK (there could be of course also possibility, the original KK was also Pogog). Excuse me please for the very bad drawing, I also will let away the Jenggot.

Fitting a gonjo is a test of skill with tools, not really so difficult. But achieving a flow from gandhik to gonjo and carving a rondha or greneng is not only evidence of skill with tools, but evidence of understanding. Put it this way:- a competent fitter/machinist, or tool maker working in a factory in Chicago could fit a gonjo as well as, or better than, any great mpu, but he would not have the vaguest idea of what was necessary in the production of a greneng, nor of the required flow from gandhik to gonjo.

Gustav, what do you see as the fault at the gandhik?

Looking at the KK you've drawn in, yes, I guess it might work if the original had had a jenggot.

Alan, it was my fault in using the language, excuse me please. I mentioned not Gandhik but the part of Gonjo immediately under the Gandhik. The flow of Gandhik seems interrupted to me, there is this step between Gandhik and Gonjo.

It seems to me, there is just to much material left on Gonjo at this place, and I am thinking about a possibility, if there was not an intention to carve these small notches, which are there on many similar Balinese keris. For this there would be a need for more material left.

These notches are interesting me a lot. They are visible on many high quality Javanese blades from old european collections (17. cent.) and seem to disappear somewhere around 1700 (?) in Java. Yet they continued to appear on Bali/Lombok keris, some Madura and East Java keris (?), and (very interesting) as characteristic feature on Keris Pandai Saras from Peninsula.

They are looking like an idea coming from architecture to me, a bit like basement segmentation on Javanese Candi.

Thank you for clarifying that Gustav. Yes, you are talking about exactly the same lack of flow that I have mentioned.

Very good observation on your part, re the disappearance of those lines under the sirah cecak. Very good.