11th December 2022, 02:32 PM | #1 |
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Cast bronze hilt
Hello everyone,
A Balinese hilt of copper over wood I have seen quite often (picture 1) but now i have a hilt of cast bronze weight 400 gr/14,2OZ/0.888LB (seems very heavy to me for a hilt) the previous owner owned it for about 50 years. Is this a rarity?, or do you see this more often? I had never seen a hilt of solid bronze? |
11th December 2022, 07:19 PM | #2 | |
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12th December 2022, 04:54 PM | #3 |
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The Etnology museum in Leiden has a keris with a similar hilt, but made of brass instead of bronze. The aspect is clearly that of a cast object, not that of an embossed metal sheet. Obviously this kind of hilts can be considered a rarity, because of the weight and consequent unbalance of the keris and the difficulty of melting the material. Enclosed please find a scanned photo of low quality because of the big size of the book.
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12th December 2022, 05:03 PM | #4 |
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Sorry for the upside-down image
Last edited by David; 13th December 2022 at 03:45 PM. |
12th December 2022, 05:10 PM | #5 |
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Please apologize, I cannot fix the problem
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12th December 2022, 09:18 PM | #6 |
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There are genuine hilts cast from bronze/brass. I haven't seen any solid ones - only with fillers like clay or cutler's resin.
The one shown in the first posting apparently was never in use (obstructed pesi hole; freshly cut base after casting); it also exhibits casting flaws at the front which (in addition to its heavy weight) make a real use as hilt unlikely IMHO. From the pic, the one from Leiden does not look like a high quality example either (again, IMHO). Regards, Kai |
12th December 2022, 09:22 PM | #7 |
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And Gio's pic from Leiden for better viewing...
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13th December 2022, 05:27 PM | #8 |
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thanks for your comments,
the strange thing for me was that casting bronze is not easy and is quite expensive. And a traditional hilt maker is not familiar with this, so I thought maybe it was made by one of the local statue makers? |
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