Ethnographic Arms & Armour
 

Go Back   Ethnographic Arms & Armour > Discussion Forums > Keris Warung Kopi
FAQ Calendar Today's Posts Search

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 9th July 2017, 03:54 PM   #1
Athanase
Member
 
Athanase's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Paris (France)
Posts: 408
Default Strange Mendak on Yogyakarta Keris

Hello

Here is one of my new Kriss (My First with a Yogyakarta hilt).
The blade measures 37cm long (9.5cm wide for the Gonjo).
Unfortunately there is no scabbard.

The brass mendak/selut? is of very unusual shape and with very poor finishes.
This is very strange as it looks old, but its quality is worse than the blade and handle.
Attached Images
 
Athanase is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 9th July 2017, 05:12 PM   #2
Marcokeris
Member
 
Marcokeris's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Italy
Posts: 928
Default

Nice keris but the mendak (selut) is wrong.... better to change it
Marcokeris is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 9th July 2017, 06:10 PM   #3
David
Keris forum moderator
 
David's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,113
Default

I agree. I frankly couldn't tell you what this is for, but i don't think it is at all correct for this keris.
David is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 9th July 2017, 06:34 PM   #4
Athanase
Member
 
Athanase's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Paris (France)
Posts: 408
Default

This mendak is very badly proportioned for this Keris, but since it seemed a bit old I preferred to ask before changing.
Athanase is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 9th July 2017, 07:51 PM   #5
David
Keris forum moderator
 
David's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,113
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Athanase
This mendak is very badly proportioned for this Keris, but since it seemed a bit old I preferred to ask before changing.
I'd say even worse than the problem of proportion is that it does not seem to be culturally Javanese. I am not sure what area of keris culture it actually originates from, but i don't think it is Javanese.
David is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11th July 2017, 06:04 PM   #6
Royston
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Poole England
Posts: 443
Default

Looks a bit like a small brass drawwer handle that has been trimmed down and had a few decorations bashed into it.
Royston is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18th July 2017, 06:27 PM   #7
Jean
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 1,740
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Athanase
Hello

Here is one of my new Kriss (My First with a Yogyakarta hilt).
The blade measures 37cm long (9.5cm wide for the Gonjo).
Unfortunately there is no scabbard.

The brass mendak/selut? is of very unusual shape and with very poor finishes.
This is very strange as it looks old, but its quality is worse than the blade and handle.
On the top right and below pics with the grey background, it appears clearly that the tikel alis was very poorly carved (added later?) and it has affected the outline of the front sogokan. I am also of the opinion that this blade was modified by somebody much less skilled than the original maker.
Regards
Jean is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18th July 2017, 07:10 PM   #8
David
Keris forum moderator
 
David's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,113
Default

Well gentlemen, i would not necessarily argue with anything said here, which seems to be quite a bit of i don't know. Alan, you know quite a bit more than most of us on these matters, but i, for the life of me, would never be able to make any definitive statements on the greneng from these photos, even when i attempt to blow them up on my screen. So more power to you. Except that just about everything you do have to say about this keris comes back to the fact that you would still have to handle it personally to really know more, which is pretty much what i said. What we have is a keris that may have had later work done on it by a lesser skilled craftsman for reasons unknown. It certainly isn't the kind of extravagant yet haphazard work done by unscrupulous dealers to raise the salability of a keris by adding all kinds of previously absent features. Seems more to be work done on already present features. Perhaps there was damage that simply needed to be repaired. Maybe it looks better now, maybe it looks worse. We will never know. All i can say is that i would have been quite pleased if my very first keris looked this good in spite of all its inconsistencies. I personally have never been able to afford "perfect".
David is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18th July 2017, 07:24 PM   #9
David
Keris forum moderator
 
David's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,113
Default

Thanks Athanase, those are definitely better photos which may or may not attract a new round of speculation.
I still see some problems with the sogokan in these new shots of course. I can also certainly see the greneng better in these latest pictures though i will leave any judgement of that to others.
Curious that someone would take the take to make possible adjustments to the kembang kacang, greneng, tikel alis and sogokan and then leave the edge of the blade all raggedy like that. You would think if they were going to do all that other work they would "fix" the edge as well.
I still like this keris despite its blemishes and foibles.
David is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 18th July 2017, 11:39 PM   #10
A. G. Maisey
Member
 
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,877
Default

Thank you Athanase for these new photographs.

We now have material that in my opinion has turned this thread into perhaps one of the most valuable threads in recent times.

Firstly, let me say this:-

WRONG WRONG WRONG:- MAISEY WAS WRONG

These new photos permit me to form a much better, and much more accurate opinion of the keris. David opined that we needed better photos, I should have listened to him, he's a pro, I'm not. I thought I could see enough to make legitimate comment from the original fotos. I was wrong.

So now I'll start again.

This is definitely an old blade, it has not been altered, added to nor detracted from in any way, however, the level of craftsmanship is somewhat less than good.

My comments in my previous post were incorrect in many respects, and this is one of the things that makes this a valuable thread:- we all need very good photographs to give any idea at all of what we are looking at. I thought I could see sufficient from the original photos : I could not.

In these new pics I can see exactly the degree of erosion that I would expect on an old blade, if we look at the erosion on the blade edges we can see that from the 4th luk to the point the edges are ragged. This tells us that the blade has been hardened from the point to the mid-point of the 4th luk, proof positive of age. Very, very few current era blades are ever hardened, and the form of erosion on this blade indicates natural erosion, not forced erosion.

The sogokan is now much more clear. It is not well done, but it is correctly done, the poyuhan was correctly sculpted, and loss of form can be put down to age.

The tikel alis:- clean, clear well formed, original.

The gandhik is very well sculpted, but at the expense of stealing material from the kembang kacang, which would have been rather slight, even when new.

The greneng is the big surprise to me:- it is correctly cut, the man who cut it knew what he was doing, but his level of knowledge was at pandai level, not mpu level. He has cut correct Mataram rondha, but has cut them poorly, and the complete greneng says less than it should. It was a major error on my part to try to read the greneng from the original pics.

Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to give this keris as HB (yaitu Hamengkubuwana, atau Yogya).

Overall, it is a nice old keris.

I've learned a good lesson from this, and I hope we have all learned that decent photos can make a world of difference in an opinion.

ATHANASE
Re your photo difficulties.
If you have north facing windows looking out onto trees, and you are in the Northern Hemisphere --- which of course you are --- you are in an ideal situation to take very good keris or other photos.
I'm not a pro, as is David, but I have been taking keris photos for a very long time. I'm in the Southern Hemisphere and my situation is exactly similar to yours:- south facing windows looking out onto trees.
My suggestions to you would be to shoot from a tripod, use remote release, use a neutral backcloth, use bounce boards (three ply faced with aluminium foil) to throw light onto your subject. In processing you will probably always find that the image will improve by removing cyan. Sharpen. Never use a flash. To me, these are the essentials, anything else can be an extra.
A. G. Maisey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28th March 2023, 10:14 PM   #11
Athanase
Member
 
Athanase's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: Paris (France)
Posts: 408
Default

Hello,

I am digging up this old thread because while leafing through the catalog of the Charle Buttin collection I realized that the Keris of this thread is perhaps the n°858 of the Charle Buttin collection.
The dapur and the lengh of the blade (37cm) is the same and the very strange mendak/selut seems to be identical.

What do you think ?
Attached Images
 
Athanase is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:03 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Posts are regarded as being copyrighted by their authors and the act of posting material is deemed to be a granting of an irrevocable nonexclusive license for display here.