Keris (or not ?) with chinese handle

[A. G. Maisey]

As I said Gustav, I have never seen an old one.

You have apparently seen some photos of older ones.

Can you tell me where the photos depicting these older examples might be found?

Thank you.

The fact that the upper rim of this selut is straight has nothing at all to do with quality. This hilt must use a selut with a straight upper rim, a scalloped rim used with this hilt would destroy the harmony of the figural carving & in Javanese eyes would be seen as totally out of place.

The scalloped rim that we so often see on planar hilts is a convention used in order to accommodate & emphasise the planes of the hilt.

[Gustav]

Alan, exactly, that would include the possibility that the Selut was made to accomodate the figurine turned into hilt.
Regarding more recent Selut, I have seen by far more ones with stright upper rim mated to planar hilts, and this is, what I would call lower quality.

If you have van Duuren's edition of Gronemans articles, photographs of Keris with such Selut can be found on pages 267, 264, possibly of higher quality 251.

I own two Keris with such Selut, both came to Europe before WWI.

[Gustav]

One of them:

[Paul B.]

Could it be a sepang blade missing the ganja?

[Gustav]

And two from Groneman, one more refined:

[Athanase]

The selut is in silver, not brass plated.

Yes I think that a Sepang Keris blade without ganja is the most likely.
The warangka was made after the loss of the ganja.
The thin coper pendok and the good quality of wood make me think that the set was assembled during the first half of the 20th century, but not later (But it's a feeling, not a certainty).

In any case, as Allan said, even if this "Keris" does not respect the Javanese rules, it is not an object for tourists.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for those pics Gustav. Yes, a couple of those selut certainly seem to be the same motif, but I'm not so sure about the one where the individual dots have been separated into "islands".

Still, it is interesting to see these old examples.

These days this pattern selut is one of the lower priced styles, but way back when these ones that you have shown us were made I'd guess they were probably no better & no worse than most other selut in the market place.

For the last 50 or 60 years, in Solo, it has not been the usual practice to get a selut made for a hilt, but rather to get the hilt made to fit the selut, or to do a retro fitting of selut to an existing hilt. So a client will approach the tukang jejeran with his order and provide a selut, or perhaps only a mendak, and the tukang jejeran will make the hilt to fit that selut. In any case, most of the component parts for keris dress are made to standards that permit a high degree of flexibility in fitting.

The question of "quality" in a selut or mendak is one where we would need to first establish exactly what we meant by "quality". Some lower priced selut can be quite well made & durable, some higher priced selut can be poorly made and flimsy, even though they might look good in a photo. Then there is the difference between a selut with a cast body and a selut with a fabricated body, or the difference between stones that are held in place with adhesive and stones that are in a setting.

A similar thing applies with mendak:- is it fabricated, or cast, or stamped out, or produced by embossing or repousse, or has a combination of techniques been used?

We are only in a position to appraise quality of any type of work if we understand the processes that are used in production.

For example, have a look at the mendak on the keris under discussion. Based upon what we can see in the photograph, what process might have been used to produce this mendak? Is this a high quality mendak or a mendak that would slot nicely into the lower priced end of the scale?

Incidentally, if that selut does indeed test as silver, rather than as silver plated brass, my estimate of age was wrong. In recent times this pattern of selut seems to have invariably been made in brass & then plated, so if the one under discussion is indeed silver, that would place it earlier than current era.

The pendok on this keris does not appear to be copper, it looks like silver or mamas, the bruise pattern inclines me to nominate silver.

The only way we can be certain about the material used in these keris fittings --- & other things produced in Jawa --- is to go to the inside of the object, heavily scrape the surface and then use a test fluid.