Keris Buda

[rasjid]

Ok noted your explanation. Is your KB in the hand also "feel" heavy as well?
I understand it has been coroded long time and lost alot of its steel, but does it feeling heavy on hand? Because I think your KB is quite thick as well.

I'm trying to make a note for myself here. I have seen a few KBs newly made material is heavy and corrosion can be adjusted for whole blade or certain areas. The hardest part is when people start using very old material to make one as you have mention in the previous post. So how we distinguish?

I'm not playing tangguh game here, but for keris KB can we start by:
1. Look at the whole blade pawakan and imagine in their original form if the whole blade fits and feels right?
2. Corosion on the blade? Questionable?
3. Material used. Sometimes difficult to see texture or maybe heavily corroded with rust so hard to see. Here, maybe the weight can play a part to distinguish the material used?

May be others can add or discuss above points?

Thank you.
Rasjid

[A. G. Maisey]

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.

[rasjid]

Thanks Alan for the update.
The Keris below was given to me from my friend who are not interested to keep it anymore due to personal reason. After getting permission from his two uncles and two years waiting period, this one and few keris and others belong to me now.

The physical blade is quite thin compared to Alan's. Is this also one of the transitional type from KB?
Any comments?
Thanks in advance.

[A. G. Maisey]

Rasjid, when I talk about a "transitional" keris I have in mind a keris that is not a KB, but that has some of the features of a KB. I cannot recall ever hearing anybody else use this term; mostly an ahli keris in Solo will place a dubious old blade between two tangguhs, not committing to either one.

I cannot recall ever having seen a KB with gonjo iras.

Is the tang of your keris square, rather than round?

Is the top of the gonjo the correct shape for a KB?

Has a core been used or not?

Is the material dense, well packed, or tending to porosity?

The long gandhik is not something I would expect in a keris that followed the KB line, rather, I would expect this in a Pajajaran or even a Tuban keris.

[rasjid]

G'day Alan,
The tang is square, and from my understanding this has core but laminated differently not sandwich like normally seen. The picture taken after warangan done and given oil on the blade.
The blade is dense and well packed, I like the material used.
Agreed Pajajaran or Tuban and the owner's family history has relationship with Mangkunegaran and lived in Kebumen.
Ok noted that the long gandhik as shown is probably not a "transitionall" keris KB.

"Is the top of the gonjo the correct shape for a KB?"
Could you elaborate more by what you mean?

Thank you.
Rasjid

[A. G. Maisey]

Rasjid

Have a look at image 12 for the gonjo.

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/INTERPRETATIONPAGE3.html

Image 11 shows a keris that seems to be between a KB and a recognisably Modern Keris. The gonjo of this old waved keris is KB style, material conforms, but then we've got that long gandhik, and of course the waves. I've opted to call this "transitional", but we could equally call it "early Modern". Maybe the same line of thought could apply to your keris.

Yeah, based upon what you say, I think we could probably think of your keris as a transitional form, the square tang is possibly the decider, if you get that plus a few other things then its a bit hard to say that it is purely Modern in form.

You say the core is not a side to side core. Is it fitted like a "V", so that it only provides cutting edges?

Really Rasjid, in this whole area of KB's and very early keris, we're swimming in strange waters. To my knowledge nobody else has ever looked really closely at these questions. The whole time I've been studying keris the focus has been on art and to learn how to apply the tangguh system in a way that doesn't divorce you too much from the consensus of opinion. I've gone off to one side.

[rasjid]

Alan,

Thank you. I have very limited knowledge about Keris, especially never actually make one myself (from folding the material itself). For me to understand better about Keris itself we also need to understand how the keris is folded, the core and the pamor as well.
Back to my previous keris picture, I'm not 100% sure if its fitted like "V" or like Japanese sword or not. From what i can see, after the warangan - i can see the different material is used from that blade.

Mine also do not have the steel mendak, just plain square peksi.
Thanks