New Keris for info

[A. G. Maisey]

Pretty much so David.

During the PBX era, and I think beginning perhaps a little before that, those in the upper levels of society were collecting keris art, and weapon art. Pakubuwana X himself was a very enthusiastic collector, he liked unusual hilts, unusual keris, and he had his palace craftsmen copy weapons from Europe, the Indian Sub-Continent, and other places.

There is no place in Javanese society for a keris that falls outside the normal mode of wear. A great long keris that was unable to be worn in a style that was regarded as acceptable in Javanese society had no place in that society. Javanese nobles could not wander around the streets skewering people lower down in the societal hierarchy in order to test their new kerises, as reportedly the nobles of old Malaya did.

So, although there definitely were long keris made in Central Jawa, they did not form a part of the dress code.

It was not a matter of "just anybody" who could possess a long keris, it was more a matter of who had sufficient disposable income to own a keris for which there was purpose other than to make the possessor feel good. Pretty much the way we operate today. In 19th century Jawa, the whole thing of weapons as art and collectables appears to have begun in the kraton, and from there was picked up by others lower down in the pecking order.

The pamor on this keris is not a pamor that resembles a tambal pamor, it is a tambal pamor, and one of the names for the pamor contained in the applied patches is "koro welang", others might give it as "pandan iris", and there are possibly other names in use also.

However, the component parts of the dress seem to me to resemble the representative styles rather than to be authentic productions of those styles.

As to age of the blade, and separately, age of the complete keris.

I do not consider that I have been generous with my estimate of age, I have given a window of 100 years , beginning yesterday and continuing backwards for 100 years or so. That 100 years encompasses the revival period, which began in about 1975 and was in full swing by the 1980's.

I regard "current era" as the period that is identified by some as "Kemardikan" . I personally do not like this designation of Kemardikan, and if I'm out of step with most others, so be it.

If we are to place origin of this blade into Jawa, we need to identify a possible place of origin, and I cannot. If we regard Madura as a part of Jawa, yes, we can identify a possible place of origin. But I am reluctant to give this keris as a Madura, current era production, for the simple reason that I have not seen a similar keris that I knew had been produced in Madura, and this is the benchmark that I personally use when I give something as "Madura, current era". I prefer to be conservative, rather than to say something is so when I it might not be so.

However, all that said, the surface of this blade does look a lot like a blade that has been treated during the current era.

As to age of the dress. I'm not particularly interested in this. No matter when the dress was made, it is no more than something to house the keris. I doubt that the hilt and wrongko come from the geographic locations that generated these styles, but my measure of their desirability would be their quality, and I cannot really judge this from a photograph.

If one is an antique collector who likes keris, well, obviously the age and authenticity of dress is important, but if one is a collector and student of the keris, age and authenticity of dress comes a very distant second --- something to be considered , perhaps, and often, not even that.