My Refurbished Balinese Kris

[milandro]

Few months ago I bought a job lot from a person whose Grandfather spent time in Indonesia. Among several things there was this beautiful very long blade which was in a non fitting sarong (incidentally there was some pencil written information on this where the sarong had lost its veneer and it was dated 1924 ). The blade had a simple Hilt had no proper sarong and was too long and wide to fit the sarong that it was in.

It was also covered with some lacquer. So I set out to restore this blade. Restoring the lacquer was the least of the problems. All it needed was to put it in boiling water. The lacquer came off and it wasn't difficult to clean the left over gunk.


I then sent the blade to be washed by a trusted person whom does this for me and it came back very nice.


Quite by chance I took part to an an auction where I bought a few hilts. This one was really nice and depicted Dewi Saraswati goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning.

Incidentally and incredibly in the same auction there was a similar Kris which had belonged to Emile Veenendaal with a similar grip and it too was a Ganja Iras Balinese Kris with a Bengo segodo pamor (what are the chances!).

So I put the Hilt on My kris with a suitable solid silver mendak and commissioned a Sarong to be custom made on Bali (of course the measures had to be carefully taken ).

It came. back almost perfectly fitting and with the assistance of a local dealer skilled in woodwork it was made to fit perfectly.

I am very pleased with the overall result.