Sumatra Keris tourist or not?

chregu · 8th April 2010, 06:03 PM

hello together
I bought this today and I'm not sure Keris tourist piece or not.
to any info grateful
gruss Chregu

David · 8th April 2010, 06:18 PM

Based on dress alone i would say this is a Madura keris, not Sumatra. This style of dress is often associated with "tourist" variety Madura keris. Yours seems an older example with an even older blade.
Back in the early 20th century many dutch soldiers brought keris like these back from being stationed in Indonesia. Perhaps one might say that was the beginning of the "tourist" keris. Those bring-backs usually had real, though lower end blades in some sort of carved sheath like yours. Sometimes the figure depicted is a lion. Yours appears to be some sort of bird. You may, therefore, be able to consider this a "tourist" keris, though certainly not in the same way as a contemporary blade in brand new dress made for the market these days. Personally i find keris like this one very interesting and collectable even if there intention in their current form was for sale to returning dutch soldiers. They are a piece of history if you will.

chregu · 8th April 2010, 07:22 PM

hi david
thanke for the detailed answer. Indonesian history is not my area of expertise.
gruss Chregu

A. G. Maisey · 8th April 2010, 11:52 PM

Yes, its a Madura keris, and as David mentions, this style of dress is sometimes associated with keris that were produced for collectors in the period from around 1880 through to WWII.

However, simply because there seems to have been production directed at the collector market does not make this style of dress any less desirable, in fact, old examples of this dress style are now relatively scarce and for the better ones, quite expensive, especially those which are carved as lions.

In my opinion, it is wrong to think of this type of dress as "tourist", because it is a genuine and old established type of dress, however Europeans favoured it because it is elaborate, and blades redressed for sale in the later colonial era were probably dressed this way to facilitate sale.

Examples of this dress can be seen in the museum of the Kraton Sumenep, in Madura. There are a number of different styles, all having different names. I understand the generic name is "gabilan", but there is another larger style that is named "brahmana rsi". I am unclear on the distinction between the two, except that the brahmana rsi is larger.

I do not favour the term "tourist keris", most especially for any type of keris that does have a legitimate old form. If I consider the types of keris that have been made specifically for the tourist market there is really only one type from Indonesia that I can fit squarely into that box, I do not have an example I can show a photo of, but it is a Balinese production, the scabbard is almost always of Makassar ebony, but later ones were stained black, the carving of scabbard and hilt is often of a very high standard, and very often the blade is a piece of flat iron with an etched pamor design. This type of keris was produced exclusively for tourist consumption.

Rick · 9th April 2010, 03:31 AM

This old thread :
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...gabilan+madura

And a Lion form .

No mendak needed; it's carved right in .

David · 9th April 2010, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

However, simply because there seems to have been production directed at the collector market does not make this style of dress any less desirable, in fact, old examples of this dress style are now relatively scarce and for the better ones, quite expensive, especially those which are carved as lions.

Yes, i have been interested in finding a nicely carved old version of this lion dress for some time.
I agree with you completely Alan. This notion of the "tourist" keris is really a misnomer. Those nasty cut out blades with the paint on pamor from Bali would qualify, yes, and those souvenir Malay letter opener keris with the silver plated blades certainly do, but beyond that...

BluErf · 10th April 2010, 03:22 PM

I thought the blade is a very decent blade! Has a settled old look to it, and definitely made by a pandai who knew what he was doing.

Henk · 10th April 2010, 04:20 PM

These keris where as mentioned Madura style keris and probably made in madura for the Dutch soldiers to bring back home. Especially Madura was very loyal to the Dutch. This loyalty is represented in some styles of the maduran ukiran full of Dutch symbolism

I already mentioned in another thread that these kind of keris are worth to find a place in a keris collection. A real keris blade in a mostly good carved but also a dress of lower quality of used wood representing a historical period. Until now i've seen two styles of this soldiers keris if i may call it so. Both styles are shown in this thread.

Here in Holland you couldn't enter an auction house or fleemarket without stumbling over some of these keris. Today they start to become more rare to find.

David · 10th April 2010, 05:45 PM

Well, as Alan has pointed out this dress form was a legitimate one that was favored my Europeans and so it became associated with them due to their desire to have these elaborate carvings for keris they returned home with. But we would probably be a bit off base to assume that they were always made specifically for Dutch soldiers. And for the most part i think the blades in them were not made for them either. Just old blades they managed to collect and have re-dressed in this form. Because of this i think we see a great deal of variation in the quality of blades we find in this dress, but usually they are not top-notch blades. We also see a wide range in the quality of the dress itself.
Is it not possible that we might find one of these in Madura where it was owned by a Maduran and never meant to be a soldier's souvenir?

Henk · 10th April 2010, 11:42 PM

David,

Very good question.

The blades where older blades indeed and mostly not top-notch blades. In my opinion and that's why you see them so much here in Holland is that these dresses were purely made for bringback gifts for mainly the Dutch soldiers and other Dutch employees in those days.

In my opinion the Maduran owned keris in their proper maduran dress and not in dress of lower quality wood, that was used for these bringback kerisses.

Rick · 11th April 2010, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henk

David,

Very good question.

The blades where older blades indeed and mostly not top-notch blades. In my opinion and that's why you see them so much here in Holland is that these dresses were purely made for bringback gifts for mainly the Dutch soldiers and other Dutch employees in those days.

In my opinion the Maduran owned keris in their proper maduran dress and not in dress of lower quality wood, that was used for these bringback kerisses.

My answer would be :

look at the extravagant carving of the Donoriko hilts !

If this sheer exuberance in the carver's art can be practiced in this medium then why not in the Wrongkos and Gandars of Madura keris ?

So I would disagree that these were purely "Visitor"
oriented works .

Visitor influenced, perhaps; or was it assimilation into the culture ?

Henk · 11th April 2010, 09:42 AM

Rick,

There are carved maduran wrongko's en gandars and if i remembered well in a thread about maduran scabbards a wrongko with lying lion is shown.

In that case i completely agree with you. But the keris type we are discussing here are dressed in lesser quality wood which makes quicker carving possible. This quality wouldnt be the choice of a maduran for his kerisblade.

Marcokeris · 11th April 2010, 02:16 PM

Another carved madura wrongko

A. G. Maisey · 11th April 2010, 02:17 PM

Henk, you're a better man than me.

I simply cannot tell with any certainty the quality of the wood in chregu's scabbard.

What I can see is a reasonably close grained wood that supports a reasonably fine carving pattern, the scabbard is old, but the pattern of the carving has not collapsed; the wood looks as if it has been stained black, but the area on the hilt where it has worn through seems to have a reddish colour, so it is possible that this wood might be sawo, which does have similar grain and support characteristics, if it is sawo, it is not a low quality wood, but quite a respectable wood.

If the wood has not been stained black, it might be sono--- but it doesn't really look like sono---and again, sono is a decent wood.

Since you have been able to detect that this is a low quality wood, could you please tell us how you were able to know this from the photos.

Thanks.

Henk · 11th April 2010, 04:00 PM

Alan,

That is really to much honor.

As i mentioned before, you couldn't enter an auction house or fleemarket here in Holland without stumbling over these soldier keris. Sometimes just 10 in a box.
If you had a lot of more keris in an auction house 10 to 1 you had 1 or 2 of such keris among them.

It is certainly not detecting the quality of wood from a picture as handling these keris so many times that it is not hard to recognize this kind of keris and recalling the quality of wood on all these keris.
I would be very surprised when the wood of Chregu's scabbard would be of a different wood quality than the scabbards of these type of keris.

On the keris Marcokeris is showing us, i will not give any comment on the scabbard simply because i cann't.

And to be honest, i owned both of these soldier keris shown here by Chregu and Rick in this thread. Sometimes it drove me to madness discovering again a soldier keris among the few keris i bought. Just reselling and hoping it wouldn't take too long before someone was willing to buy it.
I sold them all accept one with a lying lion wrongko. Today i regret i didn't kept such a keris as Chregru is showing. Regrets because i realize more and more the historical period these keris represent. But i'm convinced today or tomorrow i will stumble against such a keris like Chregru's for fish and chips because here in Holland these keris are still considered as the first tourist items brought back by our soldiers.

So Alan, it is not that i am able detecting woodquality from a picture, in that case i would be rich and famous, but the expierence of handling these keris through the years.

David · 11th April 2010, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henk

As i mentioned before, you couldn't enter an auction house or fleemarket here in Holland without stumbling over these soldier keris. Sometimes just 10 in a box.
If you had a lot of more keris in an auction house 10 to 1 you had 1 or 2 of such keris among them.

It is certainly not detecting the quality of wood from a picture as handling these keris so many times that it is not hard to recognize this kind of keris and recalling the quality of wood on all these keris.
I would be very surprised when the wood of Chregu's scabbard would be of a different wood quality than the scabbards of these type of keris.

And to be honest, i owned both of these soldier keris shown here by Chregu and Rick in this thread. Sometimes it drove me to madness discovering again a soldier keris among the few keris i bought. Just reselling and hoping it wouldn't take too long before someone was willing to buy it.
I sold them all accept one with a lying lion wrongko. Today i regret i didn't kept such a keris as Chregru is showing. Regrets because i realize more and more the historical period these keris represent. But i'm convinced today or tomorrow i will stumble against such a keris like Chregru's for fish and chips because here in Holland these keris are still considered as the first tourist items brought back by our soldiers.

Henk, i must say that over the years i have seen many of these "soldier keris" and like all things keris they come in all different levels of quality. So i do not know how you can possibly make the assumption that the quality of the wood will be the same on every one of this type of dress. Certainly a majority of these keris are going to be in this less quality of wood and execution, but not all. I went back for just a brief search in the archives and dug up a few examples that have been presented in the past by Erik, Alan and Ganja that are all of a much finer quality in both carving and wood than, say, Rick's example (no offense Rick

). I recall once seeing a particularly fine example that surpasses these ones by far, but i haven't come across it in my quick search. So all i can think is that maybe you have just been looking in the wrong boxes at flea markets all these years.

Henk · 11th April 2010, 11:40 PM

David,

I almost should say that this is the problem of this international forum and i hesitate to react on these kerisses. Actually i regret my reaction and opinion.

Telling me looking in the wrong boxes on flee markets and you forget the auction houses here in Holland and looking at the pictures you are showing me, i understand that i cann't make clear to you what i mean. Probably you will never understand it, because you're not Dutch.
I'm afraid only a Dutch can understand what i mean. I wished the Dutch soldiers brought keris back home of that quality. Almost every Dutch family who had a relative serving in The East, was surprised with a soldier keris of the quality i mentioned like the two shown in this thread. Most of these keris ended in the attic or shed or behind a cupboard. Cleaning up those places because grandpa or grandma passed away was also the moment to get rid of that thing and try to get some money for it. At a certain moment these keris popped up in every place you can imagine.

This is my last post on this subject. it cost me to much time and energy.

David · 12th April 2010, 01:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henk

David,

Very good question.

The blades where older blades indeed and mostly not top-notch blades. In my opinion and that's why you see them so much here in Holland is that these dresses were purely made for bringback gifts for mainly the Dutch soldiers and other Dutch employees in those days.

In my opinion the Maduran owned keris in their proper maduran dress and not in dress of lower quality wood, that was used for these bringback kerisses.

Henk, from your last response i fear that you are not understanding my meaning or intention in showing these other higher end dress. I certainly didn't mean to offend, but you will excuse me if i insist that this discussion has nothing to due in particular with being Dutch. I originally wondered whether this form of dress might have also been a traditional dress form before it caught on for returning soldiers. I thought that Alan suggested as much in post first post on this thread. When i asked this you responded "good question", but you response seemed to indict that you believed this is form made purely for Dutch soldiers. If i misunderstood your meaning i do apologize. We are not having a discussion solely about the quality of the wood used in these sheaths, but also the form itself. So i have shown other dress of this type which you now state you wish were the kind soldiers brought back and that your Dutch friends are surprised to see this dress in this quality. Well maybe that means some of these higher quality versions actually were made for Madurans, not soldiers. That is may point. Am i missing something here?
My statement about looking in the wrong boxes at flea markets was punctuated with a wink and a smile. It was meant in jest. I am sorry that you missed the joke.

A. G. Maisey · 12th April 2010, 01:39 AM

Henk, I understand exactly what you mean when you say that this discussion is costing you too much time and energy.

I often feel the same way about some of the threads I have become involved in.

This being so, please do not feel obliged to respond to what I shall now post.

I think that what we may have here is a slight misunderstanding caused by language usage.

You said:- "---lesser quality wood which makes quicker carving possible---"

What I understand by this statement is that the wood in and of itself is of a low quality.

There is nothing that I can see in the photograph of chregu's keris that would indicate that the quality of wood used is sub-standard. Yes, the quality of workmanship does leave something to be desired, but all indications are that the wood itself is a decent quality wood.

I have not seen nearly as many of this keris type as you tell us you have seen, but all that I have seen have used wood of decent quality, and the actual workmanship has varied enormously from superb all the way down to absolute garbage.

In fact, the speed with which wood can be carved depends upon wood of a decent quality being used. It needs to be of a tight, even grain in order to support the detail of the carving, and it needs to be of reasonable hardness. If it is too soft, the carving will not be well supported, if it is too hard, the carving will be too difficult, and additionally, very hard woods sometimes have a tendency to shear off along the grain in detail work.

For instance, black ebony is a beautiful wood, that is very hard and carves well, although it does use time with hand tools, however, its weakness is that it can lose sharp edges when these edges coincide with the cross grain of the wood.

Timoho is one of the most highly prized of wrongko woods, however, we almost never see it carved because the black sections are incredibly difficult to carve,and the pale sections are too soft to support detail well.

Cendono jowo is a very low cost wood, that is pale in colour, and easy to work. It supports carving reasonably well, and can be stained, however, in use, the carved edges in detail work will often give way and you finish up with chips all over the work. The same holds true of cendono wangi, but it is rare to see this carved, and it is extremely expensive.

A low cost wood that fairly easy to carve and that supports detail well is sono---which is what the dark wrongko that David has supplied a pic of probably is. Makassar ebony is also a candidate, but its harder and has a tendency to chip.

Sawo carves well and supports detail well, also, it is not expensive.

In fact, the idea of "lesser quality wood" just does not register with me, because the lower the quality of the wood, the more difficult the job becomes, and you can buy good quality wood for carving at a low price.

The high quality wrongko woods are virtually never carved, because it is their grain that makes them high quality, and the carving will hide that.

However, if we accept that the dress in these highly carved wrongkos is often of less than premium quality, in that the form and detail of the carving, and the overall finish, is less than good, then I for one will wholeheartedly agree.

Henk · 12th April 2010, 08:03 AM

David, Alan,

Due a bussy schedule i will respond later this week.

English is not my mother language and is probably the course of misunderstanding.

Alan, we do understand each other.
David, certainly not hard feelings and now i understand what you mean.

Henk · 14th April 2010, 10:44 PM

David, Alan,

I will try to respond further on this subject.

David, accept my apoligies, english is not my native language. I do understand english rather well, but sometimes winks and phrases I simply cann't understand as the joke they are made for. Just like we can make winks with our Dutch language, which aren't understood by non native speakers.
The keris you show from the archives are made with much more quality than the soldier keris. I do own similar maduran keris which i wouldn't qualify as soldier bring back keris, but more as maduran keris. But then to return to your question, were they made for madurans? I really cann't give you the answer. But looking at these keris I have an example with a carved wrongko and hilt of which i can imagine a maduran would have been proud to wear it.
I think however and it is a carefull guess these appearance of the maduran keris came up in the 40ties or 50ties of the previous century.

Then we come to the next point.
Alan, although i'm not an expert on woodspecies i understand clearly what you mean and how the quality or hardness of the wood gives the results of carving.
The wood of the maduran keris and which David showed us from the archives is of a kind usually used for keris sheats.

The wood of the soldier keris shown in the thread, both Chregu's and Ricks, i always compare with the wood of a firtree. Wood of the firtree is here in Holland low quality wood.

I hope this answer made clear what i ment.

A. G. Maisey · 15th April 2010, 01:26 AM

Thanks for persevering with this Henk.

I won't make any further comment of the idea of wood "quality", as the difference in our perceptions, and possibly differences in language could see us talking forever.

As to dating, yes, I think the carved styles probably did begin to proliferate in about the middle of the 19th century. But really, we're kidding ourselves to presume to put any date on any of the dress styles, simply because there is very little reliable evidence upon which to base our guess.

kulbuntet · 17th April 2010, 01:10 AM

Other example of antique tourist/knil soldier keris. The blad is much older than the scabard.

kulbuntet · 17th April 2010, 01:18 AM

I do understand what Henk is trying to say. Sometimes i think that holland have more keris than wooden shoes.

Most of them are lower quality wood. Type of woord is light. Some times well cut some times not well cut. Some times harder wood, lesser cut quality. And very sometimes hard wood good/beter cut quality.

It not all time thes types of scabard were made only for Knil Soldiers that went back to holland. I have seen photo's of Maduran soldiers in KNIL army. Wearing those types of keris. I find manny of those keris having realy old baldes inside of them. Some of them bought by Indoneisans from Javaneese the give them sheath "upgrade" to be sold to dutch, for higher price. Iff there is realation between Islaam and getting rid of their old kerisses, i dont know.

8th April 2010, 06:03 PM	#1
chregu Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: switzerland Posts: 298	Sumatra Keris tourist or not? hello together I bought this today and I'm not sure Keris tourist piece or not. to any info grateful gruss Chregu Attached Images

8th April 2010, 11:52 PM	#4
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,890	Yes, its a Madura keris, and as David mentions, this style of dress is sometimes associated with keris that were produced for collectors in the period from around 1880 through to WWII. However, simply because there seems to have been production directed at the collector market does not make this style of dress any less desirable, in fact, old examples of this dress style are now relatively scarce and for the better ones, quite expensive, especially those which are carved as lions. In my opinion, it is wrong to think of this type of dress as "tourist", because it is a genuine and old established type of dress, however Europeans favoured it because it is elaborate, and blades redressed for sale in the later colonial era were probably dressed this way to facilitate sale. Examples of this dress can be seen in the museum of the Kraton Sumenep, in Madura. There are a number of different styles, all having different names. I understand the generic name is "gabilan", but there is another larger style that is named "brahmana rsi". I am unclear on the distinction between the two, except that the brahmana rsi is larger. I do not favour the term "tourist keris", most especially for any type of keris that does have a legitimate old form. If I consider the types of keris that have been made specifically for the tourist market there is really only one type from Indonesia that I can fit squarely into that box, I do not have an example I can show a photo of, but it is a Balinese production, the scabbard is almost always of Makassar ebony, but later ones were stained black, the carving of scabbard and hilt is often of a very high standard, and very often the blade is a piece of flat iron with an etched pamor design. This type of keris was produced exclusively for tourist consumption. Last edited by A. G. Maisey; 9th April 2010 at 12:14 AM.

9th April 2010, 03:31 AM	#5
Rick Vikingsword Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 6,291	Photo Rich This old thread : http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...gabilan+madura And a Lion form . No mendak needed; it's carved right in . Attached Images

11th April 2010, 02:16 PM	#13
Marcokeris Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Italy Posts: 928	Another carved madura wrongko Attached Images

8th April 2010, 06:18 PM	#2
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,121	Based on dress alone i would say this is a Madura keris, not Sumatra. This style of dress is often associated with "tourist" variety Madura keris. Yours seems an older example with an even older blade. Back in the early 20th century many dutch soldiers brought keris like these back from being stationed in Indonesia. Perhaps one might say that was the beginning of the "tourist" keris. Those bring-backs usually had real, though lower end blades in some sort of carved sheath like yours. Sometimes the figure depicted is a lion. Yours appears to be some sort of bird. You may, therefore, be able to consider this a "tourist" keris, though certainly not in the same way as a contemporary blade in brand new dress made for the market these days. Personally i find keris like this one very interesting and collectable even if there intention in their current form was for sale to returning dutch soldiers. They are a piece of history if you will.

8th April 2010, 07:22 PM	#3
chregu Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: switzerland Posts: 298	hi david thanke for the detailed answer. Indonesian history is not my area of expertise. gruss Chregu

10th April 2010, 03:22 PM	#7
BluErf Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Singapore Posts: 1,180	I thought the blade is a very decent blade! Has a settled old look to it, and definitely made by a pandai who knew what he was doing.

10th April 2010, 04:20 PM	#8
Henk Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,209	These keris where as mentioned Madura style keris and probably made in madura for the Dutch soldiers to bring back home. Especially Madura was very loyal to the Dutch. This loyalty is represented in some styles of the maduran ukiran full of Dutch symbolism I already mentioned in another thread that these kind of keris are worth to find a place in a keris collection. A real keris blade in a mostly good carved but also a dress of lower quality of used wood representing a historical period. Until now i've seen two styles of this soldiers keris if i may call it so. Both styles are shown in this thread. Here in Holland you couldn't enter an auction house or fleemarket without stumbling over some of these keris. Today they start to become more rare to find.

10th April 2010, 05:45 PM	#9
David Keris forum moderator Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 7,121	Well, as Alan has pointed out this dress form was a legitimate one that was favored my Europeans and so it became associated with them due to their desire to have these elaborate carvings for keris they returned home with. But we would probably be a bit off base to assume that they were always made specifically for Dutch soldiers. And for the most part i think the blades in them were not made for them either. Just old blades they managed to collect and have re-dressed in this form. Because of this i think we see a great deal of variation in the quality of blades we find in this dress, but usually they are not top-notch blades. We also see a wide range in the quality of the dress itself. Is it not possible that we might find one of these in Madura where it was owned by a Maduran and never meant to be a soldier's souvenir?

10th April 2010, 11:42 PM	#10
Henk Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,209	David, Very good question. The blades where older blades indeed and mostly not top-notch blades. In my opinion and that's why you see them so much here in Holland is that these dresses were purely made for bringback gifts for mainly the Dutch soldiers and other Dutch employees in those days. In my opinion the Maduran owned keris in their proper maduran dress and not in dress of lower quality wood, that was used for these bringback kerisses.

11th April 2010, 09:42 AM	#12
Henk Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,209	Rick, There are carved maduran wrongko's en gandars and if i remembered well in a thread about maduran scabbards a wrongko with lying lion is shown. In that case i completely agree with you. But the keris type we are discussing here are dressed in lesser quality wood which makes quicker carving possible. This quality wouldnt be the choice of a maduran for his kerisblade.

11th April 2010, 02:17 PM	#14
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,890	Henk, you're a better man than me. I simply cannot tell with any certainty the quality of the wood in chregu's scabbard. What I can see is a reasonably close grained wood that supports a reasonably fine carving pattern, the scabbard is old, but the pattern of the carving has not collapsed; the wood looks as if it has been stained black, but the area on the hilt where it has worn through seems to have a reddish colour, so it is possible that this wood might be sawo, which does have similar grain and support characteristics, if it is sawo, it is not a low quality wood, but quite a respectable wood. If the wood has not been stained black, it might be sono--- but it doesn't really look like sono---and again, sono is a decent wood. Since you have been able to detect that this is a low quality wood, could you please tell us how you were able to know this from the photos. Thanks.

11th April 2010, 04:00 PM	#15
Henk Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,209	Alan, That is really to much honor. As i mentioned before, you couldn't enter an auction house or fleemarket here in Holland without stumbling over these soldier keris. Sometimes just 10 in a box. If you had a lot of more keris in an auction house 10 to 1 you had 1 or 2 of such keris among them. It is certainly not detecting the quality of wood from a picture as handling these keris so many times that it is not hard to recognize this kind of keris and recalling the quality of wood on all these keris. I would be very surprised when the wood of Chregu's scabbard would be of a different wood quality than the scabbards of these type of keris. On the keris Marcokeris is showing us, i will not give any comment on the scabbard simply because i cann't. And to be honest, i owned both of these soldier keris shown here by Chregu and Rick in this thread. Sometimes it drove me to madness discovering again a soldier keris among the few keris i bought. Just reselling and hoping it wouldn't take too long before someone was willing to buy it. I sold them all accept one with a lying lion wrongko. Today i regret i didn't kept such a keris as Chregru is showing. Regrets because i realize more and more the historical period these keris represent. But i'm convinced today or tomorrow i will stumble against such a keris like Chregru's for fish and chips because here in Holland these keris are still considered as the first tourist items brought back by our soldiers. So Alan, it is not that i am able detecting woodquality from a picture, in that case i would be rich and famous, but the expierence of handling these keris through the years.

11th April 2010, 11:40 PM	#17
Henk Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,209	David, I almost should say that this is the problem of this international forum and i hesitate to react on these kerisses. Actually i regret my reaction and opinion. Telling me looking in the wrong boxes on flee markets and you forget the auction houses here in Holland and looking at the pictures you are showing me, i understand that i cann't make clear to you what i mean. Probably you will never understand it, because you're not Dutch. I'm afraid only a Dutch can understand what i mean. I wished the Dutch soldiers brought keris back home of that quality. Almost every Dutch family who had a relative serving in The East, was surprised with a soldier keris of the quality i mentioned like the two shown in this thread. Most of these keris ended in the attic or shed or behind a cupboard. Cleaning up those places because grandpa or grandma passed away was also the moment to get rid of that thing and try to get some money for it. At a certain moment these keris popped up in every place you can imagine. This is my last post on this subject. it cost me to much time and energy.

12th April 2010, 01:39 AM	#19
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,890	Henk, I understand exactly what you mean when you say that this discussion is costing you too much time and energy. I often feel the same way about some of the threads I have become involved in. This being so, please do not feel obliged to respond to what I shall now post. I think that what we may have here is a slight misunderstanding caused by language usage. You said:- "---lesser quality wood which makes quicker carving possible---" What I understand by this statement is that the wood in and of itself is of a low quality. There is nothing that I can see in the photograph of chregu's keris that would indicate that the quality of wood used is sub-standard. Yes, the quality of workmanship does leave something to be desired, but all indications are that the wood itself is a decent quality wood. I have not seen nearly as many of this keris type as you tell us you have seen, but all that I have seen have used wood of decent quality, and the actual workmanship has varied enormously from superb all the way down to absolute garbage. In fact, the speed with which wood can be carved depends upon wood of a decent quality being used. It needs to be of a tight, even grain in order to support the detail of the carving, and it needs to be of reasonable hardness. If it is too soft, the carving will not be well supported, if it is too hard, the carving will be too difficult, and additionally, very hard woods sometimes have a tendency to shear off along the grain in detail work. For instance, black ebony is a beautiful wood, that is very hard and carves well, although it does use time with hand tools, however, its weakness is that it can lose sharp edges when these edges coincide with the cross grain of the wood. Timoho is one of the most highly prized of wrongko woods, however, we almost never see it carved because the black sections are incredibly difficult to carve,and the pale sections are too soft to support detail well. Cendono jowo is a very low cost wood, that is pale in colour, and easy to work. It supports carving reasonably well, and can be stained, however, in use, the carved edges in detail work will often give way and you finish up with chips all over the work. The same holds true of cendono wangi, but it is rare to see this carved, and it is extremely expensive. A low cost wood that fairly easy to carve and that supports detail well is sono---which is what the dark wrongko that David has supplied a pic of probably is. Makassar ebony is also a candidate, but its harder and has a tendency to chip. Sawo carves well and supports detail well, also, it is not expensive. In fact, the idea of "lesser quality wood" just does not register with me, because the lower the quality of the wood, the more difficult the job becomes, and you can buy good quality wood for carving at a low price. The high quality wrongko woods are virtually never carved, because it is their grain that makes them high quality, and the carving will hide that. However, if we accept that the dress in these highly carved wrongkos is often of less than premium quality, in that the form and detail of the carving, and the overall finish, is less than good, then I for one will wholeheartedly agree.

12th April 2010, 08:03 AM	#20
Henk Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,209	David, Alan, Due a bussy schedule i will respond later this week. English is not my mother language and is probably the course of misunderstanding. Alan, we do understand each other. David, certainly not hard feelings and now i understand what you mean.

14th April 2010, 10:44 PM	#21
Henk Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,209	David, Alan, I will try to respond further on this subject. David, accept my apoligies, english is not my native language. I do understand english rather well, but sometimes winks and phrases I simply cann't understand as the joke they are made for. Just like we can make winks with our Dutch language, which aren't understood by non native speakers. The keris you show from the archives are made with much more quality than the soldier keris. I do own similar maduran keris which i wouldn't qualify as soldier bring back keris, but more as maduran keris. But then to return to your question, were they made for madurans? I really cann't give you the answer. But looking at these keris I have an example with a carved wrongko and hilt of which i can imagine a maduran would have been proud to wear it. I think however and it is a carefull guess these appearance of the maduran keris came up in the 40ties or 50ties of the previous century. Then we come to the next point. Alan, although i'm not an expert on woodspecies i understand clearly what you mean and how the quality or hardness of the wood gives the results of carving. The wood of the maduran keris and which David showed us from the archives is of a kind usually used for keris sheats. The wood of the soldier keris shown in the thread, both Chregu's and Ricks, i always compare with the wood of a firtree. Wood of the firtree is here in Holland low quality wood. I hope this answer made clear what i ment.

15th April 2010, 01:26 AM	#22
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,890	Thanks for persevering with this Henk. I won't make any further comment of the idea of wood "quality", as the difference in our perceptions, and possibly differences in language could see us talking forever. As to dating, yes, I think the carved styles probably did begin to proliferate in about the middle of the 19th century. But really, we're kidding ourselves to presume to put any date on any of the dress styles, simply because there is very little reliable evidence upon which to base our guess.

17th April 2010, 01:10 AM	#23
kulbuntet Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Posts: 159	Other example of antique tourist/knil soldier keris. The blad is much older than the scabard.

17th April 2010, 01:18 AM	#24
kulbuntet Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Posts: 159	I do understand what Henk is trying to say. Sometimes i think that holland have more keris than wooden shoes. Most of them are lower quality wood. Type of woord is light. Some times well cut some times not well cut. Some times harder wood, lesser cut quality. And very sometimes hard wood good/beter cut quality. It not all time thes types of scabard were made only for Knil Soldiers that went back to holland. I have seen photo's of Maduran soldiers in KNIL army. Wearing those types of keris. I find manny of those keris having realy old baldes inside of them. Some of them bought by Indoneisans from Javaneese the give them sheath "upgrade" to be sold to dutch, for higher price. Iff there is realation between Islaam and getting rid of their old kerisses, i dont know.