Is it a good keris ?

[Marius66]

Good morning dear members,
I wanted to ask your opinion please on this keris,
It seems not too old.
I'm not a specialist but
I have already seen this model several times, souvenir keris '' for tourists'' and often of really poor quality but this one caught my attention : large model: 65cm long/25,6 inches .
the blade is heavycand seems of good quality and the handle is very finely detailed.
what do you think please ?

Kind regards

[A. G. Maisey]

Good blade, dress for tourists.

Re-dressed it would be a very nice thing, but re-dress might not be so easy.

[Marius66]

Thank you for your message !

Even the hilt is a bad one ? I find it is carved really carefully in comparison with other
'' similar'' tourists models

Can the blade be an old one ? I will post other pictures.

Kind regards

[Marius66]

This one for comparison is a cheap basic made for tourists hilt model

[Marius66]

Allo ??

[A. G. Maisey]

Gotta sleep sometime Marius, Saturday, 6.37am here, what time where you are?

The blade is old, pre-1900, how much older than that i cannot say from a photo, & maybe cannot say at all, but it was definitely made as a keris, by a pande, & for a Balinese man.

The dress is early for this type of keris, post 1960, pre 1980. I'm guessing here, I know the story of the origination of this dress style, but it is difficult to put a precise commencement date on it. Certainly the style came about because of the tourist flood, and that did not really begin until late 1950's. There were tourists into Bali from not long after the puputans, I think around 1920 would be a good start date, by the 1930's it was certainly on the international bucket list, then there was WWII, the Merdeka struggle, things were still pretty fragile into the 1960's --- tourists generally like to stay away from places where thousands of people are being put to death in very bloody ways.

The consolidated opinion of most informed people seems to be that the last "good year" in South Bali was 1982. After that Bali began to become the Disneyland for adults --- which it now is.

So, dress, 1960 - 1980.

The quality of the carving is pedestrian, not done by an 8 year old child, it was done by an experienced carver, but he was in a hurry.

This type of keris has now become a valid collectable in its own right, and this one is a pretty fair example of the style. What it is not is a fully traditional style that could be worn by a Balinese man.

[Marius66]

Thank you very much for your response
and I am really sorry for rushing you,
I thought there were many moderators for manage the site access.
it's just frustrating to wait several hours.
I live now in Germany.
Thank you very much for all the precious informations !!!
Best regards

[Rick]

Patience is a virtue, Marius.
Both of your moderators in the Warung live on the East Coast of America.

[Marius66]

Well
I sent a complete message for apologise 12h ago
Muzzled again 😅

[David]

Originally Posted by Marius66

Thank you very much for your response
and I am really sorry for rushing you,
I thought there were many moderators for manage the site access.
it's just frustrating to wait several hours.
I live now in Germany.
Thank you very much for all the precious informations !!!
Best regards

Marius, there are just 2 moderators for the Keris Forum, Rick and myself.
As Rick has pointed out, we both live in eastern North American, so our time zones are 5 to 6 hours apart. Besides that we are just two people who have full lives to lead outside the completely volunteer position of forum moderator. So i am afraid if you can't be patient your frustrations will only worsen. Still i know that both Rick and i check the moderation queue at least once a day and often more than that. My suggestion is to stay calm, keep posting, be patient and try not to annoy the moderators and in short order you will probably be graduated beyond your current moderated status and will be able to post directly.

[David]

As has been already pointed out, this is a fairly decent Balinese keris blade, but it is housed in dress that is aimed directly at Western tourism. You can count yourself fortunate that such a decent blade is in this dress, because usually they are occupied by old and worn out poor quality keris or even worse, the dreaded stock removal garbage with the fake batik pamor.
As Alan mentioned, while it would be nice to give this keris proper dress, as no self-respecting Balinese man wear such an ensemble in public, the could be difficult from you position living in Germany. And as also pointed out, some people do find this tourist dress to be somewhat collectable and this is a very classic representation of that this form. Yes, it is true that your hilt is carved better than many of these tourist models are, but it is still clearly in that category. If this were mine i would wash/scrub the blade well in soapy water, dry it completely and then oil it well. I would also use some wood oil on the dress and call it a day. i would image that you probably got a decent deal on this because of the style of dress.

[milandro]

As others have said, I see this king of sarong and this kind of hilt very often . They are carved for the tourist market

As other have said too, at least you were very lucky to get what appears to be a nice , old, blade. I see all too often blades that are simply cut out pieces of iron with a some painted motief with only the suggestion of a pamor.

Your blade is forged and if properly treated will reveal some sort of pamor obtained in the forge and not with paint.

As for redressing it , I have had some succes with a German dealer on Bali, he can find a sarong maker who can fashion a dress and a hilt for this kris.

It is not easy but you neet to take accurate and extensive pictures of the kris with measurements, then , after some time, he will ship you the sarong. The hilt is not a problem.


I have done this twice and the second time I was for a Bali Kris. The fitting was a little too tight but with the help of a local dealer(who is also a woodworker) with few minutes of work with a Dremel , the fitting is now perfect



see how it came out here


http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29008

[Marius66]

Really nice !!
Thank you Milandro !!!

[Sajen]

Hello Marius,

When you plan to give the blade a new scabbard I would use for this blade one of the two shown examples.

BTW, sometimes you have to wait much longer than a few hours for a comment!

Regards,
Detlef

[Marius66]

Here are some other photos I took of the keris,
I cleaned the blade a little with 1000 grain with WD40 (surely there's something better to do?) the Mendak, I think that's its name, doesn't look bad I think ??
What do you think ?

[Marius66]

Here a global picture,
Without picture zoom , the blade is almost black

[Sajen]

The blade looks good after your cleaning. And the uwer (mendak is the Javanese term) looks very nice, I guess that it is from silver.
But like others have said, I would look to give the blade a better handle and an other scabbard, I think the tip from Milandro is a good one.

Regards,
Detlef

[Sajen]

It's a nice blade!

[milandro]

looks like a nice blade


I personally wouldn't touch it with abrasives and would ask a person to use Warangan to clean it further with traditional methods

[David]

Originally Posted by Sajen

The blade looks good after your cleaning. And the uwer (mendak is the Javanese term) looks very nice, I guess that it is from silver.
But like others have said, I would look to give the blade a better handle and an other scabbard, I think the tip from Milandro is a good one.

Regards,
Detlef

I agree with Detlef. Your clean-up looks pretty good. And that uwer is a nice one now that you cleaned it up. It does appear to be silver. The stones might actually be low-grade rubies, but even if they are glass it still looks like an old quality uwer.
You could take exacting measurements and trace the blade from all angles on paper and hopefully find someone in Bali to make you a new sarung if you are really keen on changing out this dress. You would undoubtedly need to do final adjustments if you did, so i would ask that they send it to you before attaching the gander.
As for warangan, you might have some difficulty finding someone who can do a good Balinese warangan job. This keris still seems to retain some of it's old Balinese stain. I might choose to simply preserve it as is considering this.
As for abrasives, i wouldn't worry too much about doing any damage with 1000 git paper or 0000 steel wool.
Looking at the cleaned up blade i would say that it is of a fairly decent quality. Competent, but not what could be considered high end. In other words, i wouldn't spend more money than the blade is worth redressing it.

[Marius66]

Thank's a lot gentlemen for all your messages and infomations

[Anthony G.]

Originally Posted by Marius66

Thank you for your message !

Even the hilt is a bad one ? I find it is carved really carefully in comparison with other
'' similar'' tourists models

Can the blade be an old one ? I will post other pictures.

Kind regards

good old blade, i would said.