Crowns on Aceh weapons revisited

[erikscollectables]

Dear all,

My main interest is in North Sumatran weapons of State / Status. These weapons in Aceh often have crowns.

The website of John T. Crosby about the Peudeung has an interesting photo with a lot of crowns: http://home.comcast.net/~jtcrosby/Aceh.html Recently I found out that these came from the collection of a forum member: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ighlight=atjeh
and that I actually own two of the pieces that are shown in the photo!

For me a reason to revisit the theme of crowns and ask you to share you variation on Aceh crowns on sikin/rencong!

Here is a start with my rencong with crowns. Will try to make a picture later on including the sikins and maybe some items from the collection of a friend.

Regards, Erik

[Maurice]

Hi Erik,

I guess it will be hard to place different variations, because you must almost have all of the variations by now...
I can "only" put an image of my rentjong with three golden crowns and nice laminated blade, which seem not to be that rare when looking at your image...

[erikscollectables]

Originally Posted by Maurice

Hi Erik,
which seem not to be that rare when looking at your image...

Hihi - as I do not have any without crowns you would almost think so....

The question is how rare they are. I would guess that orignally only about 1 in a 100 rencong would have had golden triple crowns - maybe less. The story still is that adat prescribed these golden crowns to be worn by nobility and local leadership (panglima's etc).

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by erikscollectables

Hihi - as I do not have any without crowns you would almost think so....

Let's say what Ben (Dajak) had with the very rare "pakayuns", you have with Atjeh "golden crowns".
So many of those rare items in quantity and also in quality, that it will look for "non-collectors" like they are not rare..

[erikscollectables]

Originally Posted by Maurice

Hi Erik,

I can "only" put an image of my rentjong with three golden crowns and nice laminated blade,

There are certainly more variations. My hypothesis is that yours and mine in the center are the older types - somewhere between 1850 and 1880 or so. Nothing to back it up but the looks of these are always older - and very ready for "business" and most ofen they also have some battle scars (mine sure has them...)

Regards, Erik

[Maurice]

Also the enamel is partly gone and partly still there...(could be because of use or age?)
As I can conclude from your image, the middle of your rentjong also misses the enamel partly.

But what are the features you think they are older types?
Is it the shape of the upper crown you can find back in the deep carving of the handle?
Or are it the motifs on the golden crowns you are looking at?

[erikscollectables]

Well made crowns but relatively simple - a bit less refined and less detailed. Enamal is more coarse, less clear in colour and indeed often missing for the bigger part - maybe they did not have the right procedure yet? And the handles are of the dark type indeed almost always with the stripe carvings. The blades are of high quality - most often laminated. The others have often relatively simple blades that look good but more for status than use in my opinion (although some clearly show signs of use as well).

Regards, Erik

Originally Posted by Maurice

Also the enamel is partly gone and partly still there...(could be because of use or age?)
As I can conclude from your image, the middle of your rentjong also misses the enamel partly.

But what are the features you think they are older types?
Is it the shape of the upper crown you can find back in the deep carving of the handle?
Or are it the motifs on the golden crowns you are looking at?

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by erikscollectables

Well made crowns but relatively simple - a bit less refined and less detailed. Enamal is more coarse, less clear in colour and indeed often missing for the bigger part - maybe they did not have the right procedure yet? And the handles are of the dark type indeed almost always with the stripe carvings. The blades are of high quality - most often laminated. The others have often relatively simple blades that look good but more for status than use in my opinion (although some clearly show signs of use as well).

Regards, Erik

Erik,

Thank you very much for your explanation.

So the sikin with three golden crowns you bought on the last keris-fair this year in Bronbeek where we did meet, could be of the same age. That one also has that kind of less detailed crowns, like the " probably older" rencongs.

But it is a fact that I was thinking often why there were pieces with almost all enamel gone, and pieces with all enamel that intact and very fine in the more refind carvings....
I did see the differences between them, but didn't think further what could be the reason. But I can imagine that age could be the factor!

Regards,
Maurice