Sunginggan - six degrees of separation

[A. G. Maisey]

I do not believe that we can apply the "colour code" that applies in the Surakarta Karaton to this keris.

Based upon what I believe I can see in the photos I would be inclined to place this complete keris as North Coast Jawa, perhaps Cirebon or Batavia (Jakarta), and probably put together as a dress keris for a gentleman of Chinese descent.

The blade does not appear to be Balinese, but rather West Jawa or Sunda style. I do not like guessing age from photos, but I feel that this wilah is late 19th century through to 1930's, this guess could be completely wrong, there is nothing that I can see that would prevent this wilah from being a good quality recent production.

Sunggingan keris dress requires a conscious care, a sunggingan keris worn on only a few occasions will very often show signs of that wear; this keris appears to be impeccable. It is not unusual for a keris that still has its wrongko from a previous generation, but that wrongko is damaged to the point of it being unable to be worn as an item of dress, to have the wrongko repaired and minimally re-shaped, and then have sunggingan work applied to hide the repairs, so if the inside of this wrongko looks old, but the sunggingan work is as untouched as it appears in the photos, this could well be the story with this keris.

The blade photo is not all that clear, but it appears to be random mlumah with surface manipulation, perhaps classifiable as one of the sub-divisions of wos wutah.