MARANAO KRIS
 

Greetings everyone, just sharing pictures of my Maranao kris. Comments and analyses are welcome. Interesting thing, the scabbard was wrapped in a very yellowed Italian newspaper 'Il Tempo' with the following legible details:

Anno XLVIII / N.12
Domenica
13 gennaido 1991

From the wrapping, I'm surmising that the PH-based collector I got this from was on a trip in Italy and managed to procure this piece. Or it could just be that he subscribed to that particular newspaper. Either way, the previous owner held on to this for almost 30 years.

Enjoy!

Wow, that would be a pretty early repatriation, indeed!

That's a really nice Maranao sundang with heavy danganan hilt. I can barely make out the separate sampir - if the angled line really is where I believe to fathom it, this might be early 20th c. A larger version of the handheld pic would be good though.

Please have the grip bands tested with any larger buyer of gold - with a XRF device it is easy to measure the amount of gold and silver in the, hopefully, suasa alloy (if possible, try to get the full analysis of the alloy, please).

Thanks for sharing, Xas!

Regards,
Kai

Dear Kai:

Thanks for the analysis! Here's a closer pic of the gangya and the pommel. I've only done partial restore, hence it's still rough- just removed the rust from the blade, never really sanded and etched it properly yet.

Xas the blade might be Maranao and nice to have a ganga separation line. I would say no later than the beginning of the 20th century, but more likely end of the 1800s or earlier.

However, the hilt is Maguindanao in form and in okir. They also used silver weaving work like this.

Kai is right - get this tested by a jeweler but carefully. The orange bands I would say by the patina present and hue are probably swassa, but swassa plate over copper or solid swassa? Often these are swassa plated but still expensive. Only testing can tell for sure.

I lost mine to theft years ago. :( Hold onto this - what a great keeper! (see my avatar)

Thanks sir! Sorry about your loss-- hopefully the thief got his due in Karma.