balinese keriss ?

[Jean]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

I've always wondered why the Solo pendok is open in the front while the Dogya completely covers the wood of the gandjar. Is it for symbolic reasons or is it purely aesthetic?

Not fully correct, blewah (open) style pendoks also exist in Yogya but are less common, see pic.
Regards

[Jean]

The engravings on the pendok apparently read as 1807, but if the date uses the Javanese calendar, you have to add 78 so it is equivalent to 1885 AD.
Regards

[francantolin]

Hello,
thank you all for your comments !!

1885 is already a nice surprise !
Thank's a lot Jean for the translation !!

For the second Kriss ,
I have these pictures for the moment...

[Jean]

Hum, this is a recently made and common quality blade indeed
Please keep in mind that the dates engraved on the pendoks are not always correct (tricky sellers!) , however 1885 could be realistic.

[David]

Originally Posted by Jean

Hum, this is a recently made and common quality blade indeed
Please keep in mind that the dates engraved on the pendoks are not always correct (tricky sellers!) , however 1885 could be realistic.

I agree on the second keris. Looks recent to my eye, at least from what i can see in the photos.
The engraving on the pendok on the first one seems to have age IMHO, though it's hard to say if it originally belongs on this sheath or was merely an old piece that was used to assemble this keris for sale by a dealer. However, the blade seems to be old as well anyway so i see no reason not to regard this as an antique keris and take the 1885 at face value.

[Jean]

Yes, the blade looks old indeed and fitting quite well into the scabbard but the top of the pendok does not adjust well with the warangka on the reverse side (see first pic) so this is not an original setting IMO.

[Mickey the Finn]

I may be peremptorily dismissing out of hand any keris with a pendok upon which a date is engraved/stamped/chiseled, but...I usually do the same with pendok showing any lambang keraton...

There probably are in existence pendok with bona-fide dates on them, but almost all the examples I've seen are [to me] obviously bogus. I don't have time to get into what I consider to be telltale signs of fakery. Perhaps I should do so, however, when I have more time.

I may or may not have mentioned previously that I immediately lose all interest in any keris described as "previously owned by a senior abdi dalem of the court of Solokarta", again for reasons I don't have time to get into.

I once saw for sale a ploncon with a prominent date on the front [from the 1800s] in Javanese script, for an even number of keris. Perhaps it was completely genuine; it's possible. There was no way in hell that I was even going to bother calculating the exchange rate for this particular article, however, for reason(s) which I may get into if asked to do so, at some future time. (And my reasons may be completely wrong).

Now that I think about it, perhaps I really should write up a list of all the features which I (as an inexperienced keris accumulator, not a knowledgable collector) consider to be telltale indicators of fakery, as well as my reason(s).

There may well be a thread regarding this subject in the forum already; I'd be surprised if there was not. Or...now that I think about it...perhaps there isn't... Short of carbon dating and other forensic techniques...so much comes down to experience and education, and even with keris Sombro, it's not like we have her fingerprints to verify the genuine keris with...

I have one or two hilts which I believe to be carved from bone. I suspect that the prominent burn/ scorch marks on both of them are from a previous owner trying to ascertain whether or not they are synthetic...

Perhaps I should have just kept quiet; but it's 03:51 and I've spent too much time writing this to not post it.