Bengkulu, Bugis, Or Malaysian Keris????
 

Hi Guys,

I am new here, and hope can make new friends.

A week ago, a friend of mine gave me a keris. It used to be his father's.
Because his father passed away, and he does not have any interest in
keris, he gave the keris to me.

He did not give me any information about the keris, except that it maybe a
keris from Bengkulu. He does not know any other information about the
keris.

With my limited knowledge I found this information could be true. It looks
like a keris from Sumatra. The sheath looks like made of brass. The hilt
also looks made of brass (same material with the sheath). The blade looks
old, but I can not identify what pamor it is.

I attached 4 pictures of the keris.

Would you look at the pictures and tell me your opinion about the keris? Is it old? Where was it originated?

Thank you for your help.

Andreas

Better picture...
 

Hi Bladder,
Welcome to the forum. :)
Better (clearer & brighter) and bigger pictures of the blade could assist in finding more info on it. ;)

Bladder, welcome to the forum.

This keris comes from Sumatra and is probably Bugis. Did you try to clean the brass? Maybe you should try carefully on a small spot on the backside of the pendok. Then you can find out if the pendok and ukiran are brass or maybe even silver. Once i cleaned a very dirty handle of a Sumatran parang sold to me as brass. It turned out to be a parang with a silver handle.

Alam Shah is right some better pictures and detailed ones of the kerisblade can tell us more. My first impulse is that your kerisblade is javanese. Not uncommon because javanese blades where highly apreciated in the Sumatran area.

I agree with Henk its an Bugis (or Sulawesi) keris.
A nice webside showing some regional differences:
http://old.blades.free.fr

Although the photo's are not very sharp, it looks like a nice and complete keris.
take good care of it!. If you have planning cleaning it, i'll advice you to look in the old threads on this forum the DO'S and DON'S with cleaning and if you have a possibility testing first on a keris less value to you.

If you have some better photo's on the blade i'll appriciate it.

Could be be a Javanese blade there. Dress is in Sulawesi style, but the brasswork on the sheath and hilt looks like those coming out of Java/Madura.

Exactly, what I'm thinking. Hence the request to have better pictures of the blade. ;)

Hello again,

I attached 2 bigger pictures. But I'm sorry, my camera is not so good. I'm trying to get a better camera for better pictures.

I hope you guys could help identifying this keris.

Thanks!

Welcome Bladder. I think this keris might be a fairly recent one. It doesn't seem to fit the Bugis bill for me regardless of the dress. I suspect this keris may have Madurese origins.

Hi Bladder,

I agree with Nechesh and BluErf that the keris which you attached is a new made from Madura Island. The scratched on the blade (Sorsoran), pamor work and the iron has shown it. But, I think its nice to begining collect the keris :)

I join the opinion of these gentlemen.

Could be the washing, but the ganja looks more recent then the blade.
The Blade itself does'nt seems to recent to me.
I agree with the other gentleman that the blade origins from madura.
... a nice keris after all.

Simatua,

The ganja doesn't belong to this blade and is added to make the blade complete.
Believe us, the blade is recent.