Bugis keris

[David]

Originally Posted by Paul B.

What happened to the kerisforum? It used to be a environment of kerislovers with a vivid atmosphere. Commited forumites with different background who joined a topic. So it was a joy and pleasures to read, learn and enjoy it. Now you often have to ask twice to trigger anybody to give an opinion. At present it are always the same guys who put energy in it.To bad.

Perhaps a valid criticism Paul, though i'm not sure exactly what triggered it for you exactly at this moment. I mean Jean did give you an answer, even if he was not too sure. Others may be having the same difficulty identifying this pamor. It is an unusual one and perhaps not executed to perfection which may make a positive ID more difficult. I believe Jean found information of the last pamor name he mentioned in the book Senjata Pusaka Bugis. Perhaps this would be a good book for you to acquire if you have a strong interest in Bugis keris. Jean posted some other examples of pamor Tebba Bunga in this thread.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18667
If you google pamor Tebba Bunga you will find other examples. I saw quite a few on Badik and it does bear some resemblance to yours.
Personally my own focus is more on Jawa/Bali/Madura/Sumatra. So i am not really much help when it comes to Bugis blades. I know Alan tends not to comment much on blades outside of that nexus of keris making as well.
I do believe you are correct that at least some old time regulars are not participating as much here as they once did. I know that there are at least a couple of Facebook pages that have drawn folks away, but frankly discussion on those pages rarely gets in depth and it is mostly show and tell and people trying to sell stuff.
I have personally not contributed anything here mostly because this is not my area of concentration and Jean seemed to have at least an idea of the answer to your question about pamor. Frankly i don't see that you have really asked any other questions about this keris. So i'm not sure what else you are looking for and surely you do realize that this forum will rarely, if ever, be able to answer all of your questions about any particular keris anyway. But if you would like more input i will add that beyond the more exotic pamor this seems like a fairly average Bugis blade to me, probably from the first half of the 20th century, maybe a little older. The over all form does seem fairly balanced as you noted, but i don't particularly care for the work on the various features, particularly the sloppy carving of the sogokan, which i find rather jarring and don't really quite understand. Possibly carving a sogokan was an afterthought on this keris.