Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

A. G. Maisey · 29th August 2013, 02:57 AM

Rasjid, I think your question comes down to one very simple thing:-

How do we know if a KB is genuine or not?

The answer to this question is also very simple;-

Knowledge and experience.

It’s the same as knowing if a particular art work is truly the work of van Gogh, or Rubens, or whoever. An authority on this type of art can write volumes about how to tell the real from the not real, but unless one has a similar level of knowledge and experience as that authority all this written information only tends to confuse.

With a KB, the perceived weight of a blade is no guide.

Pawakan is no guide, because KB's come in a number of forms. I've got 5 or 6 I think, and no two are exactly the same.

The corrosion pattern can be a partial guide, but it is more in the nature of a negative guide, that is, a real KB may have a corrosion pattern that appears to be manufactured, but a fake KB will not have a pattern that appears to be real.

Material can vary a bit, and then there is the fact that KB's were made over a long period of time and in a number of locations, which of course means that the material will vary. It can help if you also have a knowledge of tools made in the KB era. I bought a box of old iron tools once, and I learnt quite a lot from these. They'd all been found in the same place by a farmer. In fact, most KB's and old iron objects are found by farmers. Some old weapons are found as burial goods. There used to be graveyard near Jogja that the local people used as a source of old iron to make tools. The people buried there had had their weapons and tools buried with them.

The most reliable indicator of authenticity is if the balance of opinion of knowledgeable and experienced people comes down on the side of a KB being genuine. For instance, present a blade to, say, 5 recognised experts (ahli keris), do it in private so that opinion is not influenced by the presence of somebody acknowledged as an expert of higher knowledge. If three say genuine, one says not genuine, and one says not sure which, then it has a good likelihood of being the real thing.

Occasionally it may be possible to have knowledge of the person who found it in the first place, and this can be a very valuable endorsement.

The three KB's that I have shown have all been agreed as genuine by a couple of very senior people, and they are genuine in my opinion also.

29th August 2013, 02:57 AM	#2
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,992	Rasjid, I think your question comes down to one very simple thing:- How do we know if a KB is genuine or not? The answer to this question is also very simple;- Knowledge and experience. It’s the same as knowing if a particular art work is truly the work of van Gogh, or Rubens, or whoever. An authority on this type of art can write volumes about how to tell the real from the not real, but unless one has a similar level of knowledge and experience as that authority all this written information only tends to confuse. With a KB, the perceived weight of a blade is no guide. Pawakan is no guide, because KB's come in a number of forms. I've got 5 or 6 I think, and no two are exactly the same. The corrosion pattern can be a partial guide, but it is more in the nature of a negative guide, that is, a real KB may have a corrosion pattern that appears to be manufactured, but a fake KB will not have a pattern that appears to be real. Material can vary a bit, and then there is the fact that KB's were made over a long period of time and in a number of locations, which of course means that the material will vary. It can help if you also have a knowledge of tools made in the KB era. I bought a box of old iron tools once, and I learnt quite a lot from these. They'd all been found in the same place by a farmer. In fact, most KB's and old iron objects are found by farmers. Some old weapons are found as burial goods. There used to be graveyard near Jogja that the local people used as a source of old iron to make tools. The people buried there had had their weapons and tools buried with them. The most reliable indicator of authenticity is if the balance of opinion of knowledgeable and experienced people comes down on the side of a KB being genuine. For instance, present a blade to, say, 5 recognised experts (ahli keris), do it in private so that opinion is not influenced by the presence of somebody acknowledged as an expert of higher knowledge. If three say genuine, one says not genuine, and one says not sure which, then it has a good likelihood of being the real thing. Occasionally it may be possible to have knowledge of the person who found it in the first place, and this can be a very valuable endorsement. The three KB's that I have shown have all been agreed as genuine by a couple of very senior people, and they are genuine in my opinion also.