Figural !
 

Post them up ! :)

Three silver hilts from Bali (Bayu, Hanuman, Nawasari).
Regards
PS: Is there a way to reduce the size on the screen?

Thanks Jean. I love these silver Bali hilts.
Here are my meager offerings, some old, some contemporary, from Jawa, Bali and Madura.

Thank you David, I love especially your ivory piece with the bird head.
Attached are 3 rather small and peculiar ivory hilts said to originate from the Balinese community in Sumbawa but I can't guarantee it, any opinion?
Regards

Thanks Jean, though i'm pretty sure that's bone, probably from the latter side of the 20th Century. I found another quite similar one on the net that claimed itself as 1950s Madura, but who knows. Never quite been sure exactly where this one hails from, though it came on an old Jawa blade. :shrug:

David, I don't think that they are made from buffalo or whale bone or even antler although one was repaired at the peksi hole, but rather from dugong tusk? There is no cap on the top, no porous surface or pits inside or outside, and no sign of discolouring with time. I agree that they are probably about 20-30 years old only, and the piece depicting a priest was dyed. I rather doubt about the Madurese origin or they would be more common in Java; these pieces were purchased in Lombok (not by myself) from a reputed dealer.
Regards

Jean, i was not referring to your hilts at all, but to the comment you made about my "ivory bird head" piece. This one does have a top cap and is probably bone. :)

Ok here is my one and only ivory and gold Balinese hilt of Ravana.........

David, sorry for the confusion! :D
And I finally show you a peculiar ivory hilt deemed to originate from South Sumatra.
Regards

Beautiful hilt! :eek:

Here a small Bali hilt from areng wood showing Membrayut.

And here a old Bali hilt from Brass set with stones.

Someone know who it is?

.

That's a nice hilt Willem, but it is not really "figural"... :)

Sorry, David.
The first 2 pictures of post nr. 3 probably got me confused ;)

I can see why they may have confused you, but while those two hilt are somewhat vegetal they both have rather clear figural faces. The second one you refer to is most definitely a buta (rakasa) hilt. It is rather old and worn, so perhaps you need to see the other angles to tell that it is truly a figural hilt form. Take a look at the images below... :shrug:

This is my collection of one. Forgive the picture quality I took them just now on my iPhone.

Rakasa in bone

OK.

Beautiful, beautiful.

But beautiful is easy to do.

Now I'm gonna make you all really envious.

Who has anything as ugly as these?

Two pics of my collection

Marco, we are doing "figural" hilts...i see a few in amongst you collection shots, but not very clearly. Maybe you could do a group shot of just the figural ones to give us a better look. :)

Well Alan, the only ones i find REALLY ugly are the fimo ones. :)

I seem to remember those little beauties .
They are glass; no ?

Are they? Glass or fimo, they are still pretty ugly... :)
I do kinda like that second squatting wood one with the E.T. eyes though. Don't find that one ugly at all Alan...

Three more.

@

Yeah, they're glass.

Modern made in a little town near Pare in East Jawa --- I forget the name of it, its peculiar sort of name --- but the technique is an old, legitimate technique. The beads made in the same way go back to before Majapahit, often used as burial goods, and the genuine Majapahit pelangi beads, some of which are quite big, are pretty valuable.

I'm sorry I didn't come up your standard of ugliness David, I did try. I'll have a look and see if I might have something uglier, but I don't think I do.

Yeah, the ET one is peculiar, I can't ID what it is supposed to be or where its from, and it really does look ETish

Here is the original thread about them:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=dewi

his thread seems to have gone very quiet, which I find strange, because I'm sure there are a lot more figural hilts out there than we have already seen posted.

Here are a few more, hopefully somebody else might add a few more.

Sorry for not responding - thank you.

Also I did the gold mounts myself (hope they are not too aweful.... :o )

Did not realize there was such a variation of hilts......

Haven't realised that it isn't original! :rolleyes:

Three peculiar Javanese hilts in figural style.
Regards

That last one - is that ivory and wood?

Looks that way to me Rick. A more figural version of the "wadon" style of hilt that some folks call "durga". Very cool hilt whatever you call it... :)

Yes, correct, ivory inserts on wood, the piece has some age.
And I attach 3 more javanese figural hilts including the "Durga" style mentioned by David.
Regards

Just have bought this very fine carved ivory handle from the North coast of Java or Madura (picture from the ebay listing). Will post by time more handles of this type.

BTW, does someone know why ivory handles from North Java often are blackened?

I have no idea in your case but I have one blackened tapak kuda hilt from Central Sumatra made from antler or bone (apparently not resin from the "dentist" drilling test of the peksi). In my case I think that the dying was made because these hilts are traditionally black but why was it not made from black buffalo horn? May be the former owner did not like the original white colour? :confused:

Sajen, I see some suspicious little bulbs on this hilt. I hope I am wrong.

Sajen, I could always be wrong, but I must say that I have never seen an ivory hilt that was blackened as heavily as this one is; the pattern of this hilt is a very prevalent one for recently made hilts. My gut feeling is that you will find it to be made of some substance other than ivory, but there may be a small ring of ivory glued to the base of the hilt.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that when dealing with sellers in Indonesia things are very often not what they are presented to be. You may not have bought this directly from Indonesia, but somebody did.

Let me tell you about a silver gilt hilt that I bought many years ago in Malang.

Absolutely beautiful hilt, old style gilt, superb workmanship, and a price to match, but it was gilded and thus just about impossible to test to see if it was silver or not. Luckily there were a couple of high spots on the face where the gilt had worn off and the silver was exposed, so I took it to a jeweller in a nearby stall and had these spots tested. They tested positive as silver. I bought this beautiful hilt and paid silver price for it --- there is a big difference in price between silver objects and copper or brass objects.

It took me several years before I discovered that the exposed high spots on the face of this hilt were tiny specks of silver that had been added to the copper base of the hilt, for the express purpose of being exposed to allow a test for silver.

I've been flim-flammed many times in Indonesia --- and a few times in other places too. Its called "education".