Please help me identify and date?
 

I posted awhile back about inhierited Keris's. I am posting pictures of 2 of the smaller ones for now. I would like to find out what region they are from and the age. Any and all information is appreciated.

My journey with these have changed. I started out about 2 years ago looking at info and seriously thought of selling. Now I am finding they have grown and attached themselves to me.

To my knowledge they were aquired in 1959. (I found other purchase reciepts from Indonesia in thisyear.)

They need a lot of TLC. I have no idea were to start or go to have them fixed. I live in Alaska and resources are very limited.

Thank you, Dee

Dee,

Both keris are Pat Rem, women's keris. The first one is from Sumatra, Palembang is my guess. The selut or hilt cup is not original. It is javanese. The ukiran (hilt) and scabbard are ivory is my first impression. The scabbard has silver fittings. Blade looks good. I would carefully remove the old glue. The silver fittings shouldn't be glued on the scabbard. And reglue the Ivory parts together again with a glue that is removable if necesarry.

The second one is in my opinion a keris from Madura. The pendok is javanese, it could be a javanese keris as well, but the wrangka has a madura appearance. The ukiran is a maduran ukiran, the selut is also on this one not original. It is javanese and a shame the ukiran was abused to make the selut fit. By the way, the ukiran should be turned 90 degrees.

Age is hard to tell. Keris are not dated and mostly it is impossible to give an age on a kerisblade.

Do they still make an all-ivory scabbard today? Reason i ask, i just stumbled in two kerises with an all-ivory scabbard and ivory hilts. Though they look old, i have no idea if they are indeed old (pre-1900), or were just made recently for tourists...

I think the ivory ones are made for weddings and the bone ones for tourists.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

As far as I know within my boundary, real ivory is still available on the market (with the price tag). It doesn't mean that bones one are for tourist, its just cheaper.

The Sumatran Ivory very dense and hard to carve also not available in the market (difficult) but African elephant ivory is still around but in limited quantity. Some "ivory look" made from white fibre also around, just make sure you pay the right price. I saw from the exhibition recently the Bali carving already using this type of material (jewelry).

rasjid

I think all the ivory I've seen in Indonesia over the last 25 years or so has come from the eastern islands.

Tusks used to form part of the bride price in (I think) Sumba, and these tusks have been the source of the ivory used in Bali and Jawa. I haven't seen any new ivory.There is plenty of this old stuff around, and it is not difficult to buy, but as Rasjid says, it is very, very expensive. Horribly so.