Material used for decoration, could it be mamas?

[milandro]

I was debating this with a friend about these decoration I have on a modern Bugis keris.


I recently visited a Dutch dealer who just got a shipment with at least a dozen of Bugis krises showing material with looked pretty much the same.


Now , I always thought it was embossed on a sheet of aluminum but both my friend and the dealer told me it was Mamas, although Mamas often shows a " golden" sheen .


Sorry about the quality of the images they are a cropped image

[A. G. Maisey]

Impossible to know what it is from a photo.

However, to the best of my knowledge, mamas has not been used in Jawa since the 1930's and I have only seen mamas used in Jawa.

[Sajen]

I agree with Ian, I have seen mamas only by Javanese and Lombok items, never by Bugis blades. I guess that it could be a modern nickel alloy but like Ian stated it's impossible to judge from pictures.

Regards,
Detlef

[milandro]

thanks, I don't think this is nickel or an alloy with nickel because they are generally very hard and brittle and wouldn't take gently the embossing or perhaps better called chasing .


This has to be a soft material anyway.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by milandro

thanks, I don't think this is nickel or an alloy with nickel because they are generally very hard and brittle and wouldn't take gently the embossing or perhaps better called chasing .


This has to be a soft material anyway.

Mamas is also a nickel alloy!

[David]

I have obviously seen mamas and have quite few examples in my collection, but is there a strict and exacting make-up to this alloy, or does the formula vary somewhat?
Milandro, i don't recall mamas necessarily always having a golden sheen.

[thomas hauschild]

I’m wondering where mamas comes from. An alloy made of nickel ( and others) seems not to be easy to be produced / melted.
Silver will be availiable from coins or traded billets It can be hammered to thin metal sheets if its needed.

Zinc and tin (?) Will be common to use it for an alloy but nickel ? Modern coins are made of nickel and copper with 75% copper and 25% nickel. Is there a different usage for mamas to use it mainly for different pieces than our weapons.

[A. G. Maisey]

See post #5:-

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...412#post288412

A little more in depth info:-

https://journals.openedition.org/artefact/1996

EDIT

there is another material that is sometimes used in ornamentation in SE Asia, & that is tin, we often find it used in seluts, where it is nearly always mistaken for silver --- until the little bottle of test fluid gets opened.

[milandro]

So I have my answer from the last comment

Tin it is! The difference with aluminum is pretty easy to assess and that is that tin is magnetic whilst aluminum isn't.

I tested with a magnet and , lo and behold, it is attracting the decoration plates.

https://sciencing.com/change-color-m...s-8584080.html