Origin of my "mystery keris"

[Greybeard]

Gentlemen,

I posted inadequate pictures. As I cannot provide better pictures, I would like to suggest: Let this useless thread die!

Thank you all for participation and best regards,

Heinz

[sirek]

all thanks for your comment,

I take the picture again, but now taken as discussed, and see if I have understood it correctly.
So the next time I place a picture, I hope it's good enough to be discussed.

Like Heinz i'm also relatively new and a "uninformed" keris collector and we always want to learn and increase our knowledge if possible

and in my opinion that is what counts, to learn from others what yourself do not know, or put in the right direction

[A. G. Maisey]

Hienz, I do not consider this to be a useless thread, on the contrary, I consider it to be quite valuable, because it has allowed us to come to terms with a recurring problem.

That problem is the presentation of images of keris that will permit a fair comment to be made in respect of the keris.

The problem with the images that you posted is not so much in the actual photography, but in the processing of the image data after you took the photograph. Regrettably much of what we see in a digital photograph depends upon what we do with the image data that the camera has collected.

What you need to do is to crop, re-size and rotate your image before you post it.

To do this you need some sort of software.

I use Photoshop, which is pretty much like using a 12 gauge shotgun to kill a mouse, but there are a number of free photo processing programs that can be downloaded from the web.

Perhaps somebody with more knowledge in this subject than I have can make some recommendations?

Sirek

Thanks for your new image. Yes, that's good, we can now see pretty much what this keris looks like.

However, as I have already noted:- it is an image of a keris, not a keris.

Because of this any remarks that are made are always subject to the caution that an opinion can be altered if the actual keris were to be examined.

For me, there are several slightly confusing elements in your keris. Some of these elements point to a Madura origin, some point to a Central Javanese origin, some could be interpreted as East Javanese, but not Madura --- Madura is a part of East Jawa.

Based upon what I can see, I would only be prepared to say that this keris is probably Javanese --- which doesn't really tell you any more than you knew before we started.


EDIT re software

Hienz, you may care to have a look at this page:-

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pix...eephotoedw.htm

[Rick]

I see a lot of pitting in Heinz's blade; pitting that is not seen on other examples shown in this thread .

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Rick, so do I, and it is fairly uniform pitting, however, I'm not prepared to guess at origins based only on this pitting--- I'd like to see what the blade really looks like before I make any comment.

[Rick]

That's why it was just an observation Alan .

[A. G. Maisey]

Yep. Understood.

[Greybeard]

Originally Posted by Rick

I see a lot of pitting in Heinz's blade; pitting that is not seen on other examples shown in this thread .

Yes, I have never seen this kind of pitting on another keris in my collection.


Thank you, Alan, for your valuable recommendations regarding posting pictures. I'll try it again later.

Heinz

[sirek]

thank you all for your effort,

To adjust the size or improve photo's you can try:
PICASA is a easy to use program and it's free.

http://picasa.google.com

[Greybeard]

Many thanks, Sirek. Actually, my son took the photos with his mobile phone (maybe a good digital camera would be better ...) and tried to process them. He will visit me this weekend, so we'll see what can be done. Nice side-effect: My son is starting to be interested in keris,
too ...

Regards,

Heinz