Keris pamor

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, I think this would be getting back to "what constitutes a good keris" thread --- which went on forever.

I'm not going to post any photos of examples of good workmanship (garap) because it is extremely rare to find that all elements of a keris blade have been done well. You might find that the sogokan in a blade is superb, but then you look at the greneng and it has been poorly done, or maybe just incorrectly interpreted, you can find ricikan done well, but in a blade that has really terrible pawakan (overall visual impression). Really terrible pawakan???? How do explain what is good pawakan to somebody who has no background at all in Javanese culture, and sees the world with different eyes to a Javanese person? In respect of the pawakan thing, I've just about given up trying because just when I think I've succeeded in getting the message across, the person I'm trying to help demonstrates that I have failed. Badly.

Maybe for an ordinary interested collector the best yardstick might be to stick with the type of standards that can be applied to all types of craft work, things like good clean lines, straight lines, parts of a circle, harmony, proportion. The "sure hand". Without getting too esoteric, sticking with these standards is going to give a positive result, even if that positive result is not 100% perfect.

However, you're dead right Jean:- the first thing that 99.9% of collectors see is the pamor, and that is very often what they fall in love with, no matter what the rest of the keris looks like.

You've used the word "subjective". In my experience the vast bulk of all keris collectors use subjective judgement in evaluating a keris, and since I am an advocate of the "if you like it, its a good keris for you" school, I reckon that subjective judgement is OK. Quite simply, not every keris interested person wants to spend the major part of his life in learning how to correctly evaluate an artifact from a foreign culture. Its more fun just to collect.