Advice on another keris
 

Hello again,

I was gifted this keris when in Makassar. The person who gave it to me did not know much about it, other than that it was from Java or Bali and that the figural motif in the handle is a representation of Ganesha.

The blade is very thin and when it is being removed from the warangka or 'dinged' with one's finger it makes a pleasing ringing sound, which I'm told is a sign of quality.

Any insight/opinions on the characteristics of this keris much welcome.

Am I right that it is Javanese?

Cheers

Hi Adam and welcome to the forum.
The blade, wrongko and mendhak all appear to be Javanese to me. The Ganesha hilt is most certainly Balinese. If this were mine i would replace the hilt with a basic planar style Javanese hilt like i show below and maybe just display the Balinese hilt, which seems a fair mid-late 20th century carving.
The blade is not old IMHO and show an Udan Mas, or Golden Rain pamor.

Thank you David, your insight, and advice, much appreciated.

Best wishes
Adam

Interesting blade for me to think about.

I see a very beefy blade with a blumbangan boto rubuh (but arguably square) and a short sirah cecak profile.

Perhaps naively I would have placed this as North Coast, but something about the pamor and overall impression makes me wonder if it's kamardikan.

What are we thinking?

I thought so as well.

I would say this is a Kamardikan blade.

Incidentally, I see lots of blades with Udan Mas pamor being marketd in recent times and , at least in the NL, they are popular among traders because the market responds very favourably to it.

I know of at least one trader who targets this pamor in particular.

The hilt, very nice by the way, is as others have said, incongruous to the Kris, it is Balinese while the rest isn't. I'd replace it and keep the hilt for another Balinese kris with a lesser hilt than this and replace it with this nice specimen.


Well done!

There is a possibility this is a reworked older blade. It is not uncommon to take an older blade with Pamor Wos Wutah and change it to a blade with the "wealth bringing" Pamor Udan Man. Such altered blades are very thin.

I am not sure about that, but I think I also see an indicator the blade was reheated at some point.

Thank you milandro.

Thank you Gustav; this is a very interesting observation. So if an older blade has been reworked/altered to introduce a new (or complementary) pamor pattern one of the telltale indicators would be a thinner blade? So you see remnants of the older pamor pattern that has been overlaid by the Udan Mas? May I ask what other trait(s) you see on the blade that might indicate it is has been altered in this way? Thanks

Adam, Pamor Udan Mas basically is a surface manipulation of a Pamor Mlumah (horizontal Pamor layers, opposite to Pamor Miring, where the layers are arranged vertically). Pamor Mlumah with small number of layers will basically result in a Pamor called Ngulit Semangka. Pamor Mlumah with higher number of layers will result in Pamor Wos Wutah. Pamor Udan Mas basically is a further manipulation of Pamor Wos Wutah, by drilling holes in it, and forging the blade flat again. For such operation a substantial, thick blade is needed, like Tangguh Tuban, because blade will loose thickness.

One indicator of a reheated blade could be the gap between the Slorok (core of blade, visible as the edge) and the first Pamor layer.